


A Night at Harbour Gardens

by Dorinda



Category: The Invisible Man (TV 2000)
Genre: First Time, Hot Tub Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Invisibility, M/M, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Post-Canon, Surveillance, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 04:32:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5443451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorinda/pseuds/Dorinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobby and Darien are sent on an investigation at some high-end condos—sorry, sorry, "Luxury Homes"—where, apparently, they can check out any time they like...but they can never leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night at Harbour Gardens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Orockthro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orockthro/gifts).



> One spoiler from the series finale, episode 2x22 "The New Stuff".

The mistake, really, was getting too comfy. Even in these cheapo Agency chairs, sometimes Bobby relaxed, and when he was too relaxed he wasn't alert. It definitely hadn't helped that Fawkes had run out of coffee, and he'd rolled Bobby off the couch too late for a Starbucks run. How could a grown-ass man let himself run out of coffee? Might as well run out of, what, red blood cells or something. Course, if anyone could do funny things with their blood, it was Fawkes.

Bobby drifted. It felt like something was itching down inside his ear. He made himself concentrate for a second. 

"Robert?" he heard, very faintly.

Eh. Just Eberts. Screw it.

The itching went away. Then suddenly it was back as more of a pain, sharp in his ear like an icepick.

" _Agent. Hobbes._ "

Bobby wrenched his eyes open and pushed hard on the arms of his chair, that stupid chair that had let him fall asleep. "Sir!" he managed, scrambling to sit up straight.

The Official's eyes were cold. Colder even than usual. His mouth was pressed into such a tight and tiny line that it had practically disappeared. "If you're ready."

Bobby looked keen and alert. He hoped. "Yes sir. Ready, sir. Ready and willing."

"If not always able," Fawkes muttered from the chair next to him. Bobby shot him a look, one of the _shut UP, can't you see how tiny his mouth is getting?!_ looks. Fawkes gazed back at him, unperturbed, his hair sticking in every direction (mostly up) and his legs sprawled out in a spectacular slouch. 

"Hey listen, it wasn't me who ran out of coffee, okay?" Bobby said. "It's un-American is what it is."

"We could've stopped at the 7-11, got you one of those little coffee drinks in a can..."

"That ain't coffee, I told you, that's a frickin' milkshake."

"You like milkshakes."

"What I _like_ is—"

" _Boys._ " 

Bobby whipped around and sat at attention. Oh, man, the Official's voice was cold too, as cold as his eyes and as tight as his vanishing mouth. Even Fawkes stopped his running commentary, though of course he didn't stop slouching and sit up, he never sat up. If he'd sat up, Bobby would've known something was wrong with him—pod, evil twin, robot clone.

"Now that I have your full attention," said the Official. He glowered, and Eberts, standing neat and silent next to him, added his own apprentice glower. Never as effective, Eberts, with his face like a sad cherub, but you couldn't say he didn't give it his all.

"Yes sir," Bobby said helpfully.

The glower turned on him like the beam from a lighthouse, matched by the voice like a foghorn. A stern and irritated foghorn. "Agent Hobbes. Pack your things."

Bobby's attention posture wilted maybe just a tiny bit. He stared. "But—"

"Pack 'em!" the Official said sharply. "You're moving."

Bobby blinked at him, hurt. "Sir, just—maybe you'd reconsider, I think I can safely say that I've done an excellent job for this agency, and if you'd give me—"

"What the hell, man," Fawkes said from next to him, cutting to the chase. "I mean, seriously. The hell."

"Not moving jobs," the Official said impatiently. "Though don't tempt me. Bobby, you are moving apartments, you're moving today, and you're moving here."

There was an uncomfortable pause.

"Uh..." Bobby said carefully. "Into...into your office, sir? 'Cause I can't see that there's all that much room for—"

" _Eberts._ "

Eberts shook himself and stepped hastily forward, reaching out to Bobby with a little pasteboard card.

 _HARBOUR GARDENS LUXURY HOMES,_ it read in fancy-dancy script. _GET AWAY FROM IT ALL!_ Underneath were an address, phone number, fax, email, website, and swoopy curled lines that were probably supposed to be decorative but just made Bobby feel a little motion sick.

Fawkes's long fingers plucked the card away. "Wow," he said. "Harbour with a U. You are definitely movin' on up, my friend."

"Really?" Bobby took the card back. He hadn't paid that much attention to the U, but it seemed to go well with the swoopy cursive. He looked at the Official uncertainly. "Are they gonna ask for a lot of references? I mean, you know, wherever I live, sometimes bad stuff goes down—not my fault, it's just collateral damage in the long fight for justice. Sir."

The Official did not look impressed at the long fight for justice. "It's taken care of. The general manager is a former colleague of mine, and you're moving in to help him."

"Sink needs unclogging?" Fawkes said, his muttering fully back on line.

"Well, hey—any friend of yours, sir, we're glad to help him out." He stepped quickly on Fawkes's foot to block any objection to the word "we". "But I really gotta move in, lock stock and whatsis?"

"He takes this situation very seriously," the Official said tightly.

"You sure he needs the big guns, though? I mean, if he's some guy who manages apartments—"

"Luxury Homes," Eberts said, taking a step forward, blocking Bobby's view of the death lasers in the Official's eyes cranking up a notch. 

"Yeah," said Bobby. "Those."

"This is an important undercover investigation," Eberts went on. "High priority. In fact, originally you weren't being sent there until next week, but it's been decided to move up the timetable."

"Timetable for what, exactly?" Bobby asked before Fawkes could. He knew Fawkes would have trouble not giving that question with a giant slackery eyeroll, and why spike the Official's blood pressure up so high this early in the morning?

"You will need to move your belongings into this furnished unit at Harbour Gardens, where Mr. Montague will contact you for a briefing." He offered a keyring on a loop of curly red plastic cable, like a circle of old-fashioned phone cord, holding a couple of keys and a blue electronic fob.

Bobby bounced the keyring in his palm, showed it to Fawkes. "Nice, huh?"

"Festive," Fawkes said. "You can wear it around your wrist so it doesn't get lost during your big shuffleboard tournaments."

"You think they play shuffleboard?"

"Oh, I'd bet they do."

"I could beat 'em, though." Bobby slipped the cord around his wrist, grimaced, and slid the thing into his pocket instead.

"Good luck," the Official said, and it clearly meant "Goodbye". Or possibly "Get out."

Bobby stood to go. "You know, if it's a furnished place, sir, I don't think the move'll take so long. We could come baAAAOW." Fawkes knew just where to kick to make his shin hurt like a mofo. "Uh, we could come back and forth, moving things, all day. Big job. Very busy."

"Definitely," Fawkes said, grabbing Bobby by the jacket and towing him out of the room.

* * *

Bobby drove, listening to the engine's rough spots as he accelerated and decelerated. He should get in there again, maybe this weekend, make Fawkes hand him beer and complain while Bobby took a look at the transfer case shift motor. You had to—

"What's up, you letting me off the hook for the big move?"

"Huh?" Bobby took a left turn and wondered when he'd last had the van's tires rotated.

"You're heading to my place."

"Sonofa—" He flipped a hasty U, earning some pissed-off honks. "Look out, federal agent on a case here!"

"Man, I knew I should never have mentioned it," Fawkes said, leaning against his door and gazing mournfully at Bobby. When he got all mournful like that, his eyes looked giant, like a medieval painting. Or a spaniel. 

"Come on, Fawkes, it's not like I got all that much stuff anymore."

"Yeah, that's true. Most of it's underfoot over at my place."

Bobby made a _pssh_ noise at him, and Fawkes gave him a special quicksilver flip off, all the fingers but the middle shimmering out of existence.

"Nah," Bobby said, turning back onto the right route. "I guess I just never got around to replacing most of it."

"You guess?" Fawkes shook the quicksilver off his hand with one snap of the wrist. "Man, your place looks like a serial killer lives there."

"Easy for you to say. Your stuff didn't get blown up in the line of duty."

Fawkes put a hand on his heart. "Sacrificed itself for its country."

"Twice!"

"That's like a Bronze Star or something."

"Exactly." Bobby sped up a little to beat the light. "But did anyone ever bother to make it up to me?"

"No," Fawkes chimed in, right in rhythm.

"No! Not even a 'sorry for the explosion' card or something."

"Testify."

"So you'll have to excuse me if it takes me a while to rebuild my entire domestic experience."

He ignored Fawkes muttering "domestic experience" and took another turn. After a minute, he said, "And most of it's over at your place anyway, so let's go there next."

* * *

They went there next, a couple suitcases and some cardboard boxes of belongings stashed in the rear of the van. 

"I wouldn't say this is _underfoot,_ " Bobby said, head and shoulders inside one of Fawkes's kitchen cabinets, retrieving his good cookware. "And I was doing you a favor. Weren't for me, you'd eat delivery pizza every day of your life."

"I'd try arguing with you," Fawkes said from somewhere above him, "but not with that leftover risotto in the fridge. I don't know how you manage it, but that stuff is the food of the angels."

"Of the gods, my friend. Of the gods." Bobby clambered out of the cabinet, his arms full. "Doesn't seem fair to leave you with nothing."

"Oh, wait, you can't take that pot you make the popcorn in," Fawkes said, snatching it back. "And you're leaving the big skillet, right, for pancakes?"

Bobby stacked the rest into a box and counted up the lids. "That oughta do it."

"Man." Fawkes started haphazardly folding the blanket and sheets Bobby had been using. "It'll feel weird having a whole couch again."

"Maybe you can come visit me," Bobby said generously. "I bet I got my very own couch now." He eyed Fawkes. "Though I don't know if they made sure to install the super-sized version."

Fawkes fluffed up the top of his hair, preening.

Bobby folded the last box shut. "Course, who even knows if you'd pass the background check."

"It's super-fancy, right, your Luxury Homes?" Fawkes grinned. "I could always just cat-burglar up the way I used to. Stretch the old skills."

"You got plenty of better skills to be stretching, there, MacGruff. Let's go settle in, figure out why Harbour with a U even needs us in the first place."

They took the remaining boxes with them, though at the last minute Fawkes plucked out one of Bobby's corkscrews, the nicest one, and tossed it on the countertop.

* * *

The new place did have a couch, all right. Boy, did it ever. They stood side-by-side in the living room and stared at it. 

"What do you think?" Fawkes said after a while. "Louis the Fifty-Fourth?"

"I was thinking maybe a florist and a bottle of glitter got married. And then they threw up." Basically, it was some couch. 

The whole place was some place, in fact, with cream-colored wall-to-wall and glossy end tables with heavy, ornate legs carved to look like lion feet. It was a penthouse, perched in lonely splendor up on the very top of a brand-new high rise building, reached via a special elevator coded to Bobby's keyfob. 

"Do we dare look in the kitchen?" Fawkes said, dread in every syllable.

"How could they ruin a kitchen? Appliances, countertops, cabinets, boom." Bobby tried to smile. "Right?" But they were both feeling it, as they edged around the corner: if anyplace could ruin a kitchen, this would be the one.

On the bright side, the kitchen did not at all match the living room's gilt-glam-chintz. On the down side, it was worse. 

"Jeez." Bobby looked despairingly around at the gingham-country decor, rows of decorated jars and beribboned bottles cluttering up the workspaces, tchotchkes on open shelves ready to gather dust and grease. The wall clock was shaped like a goose. In a bonnet. "I wanna go home."

"I want you to come home," Fawkes replied earnestly. "Right now. Let's make pancakes and forget this ever happened."

But they were professionals. They squared their shoulders and forged ahead, unpacking the kitchenware and the stuff brought from Bobby's fridge, peeking into the bathroom (sure it was a gold-plated colored-marble horror, but it did have a heated rack for the towels), and finally approaching the bedroom with the hesitant step of men destined for the firing squad. 

And the bedroom...wasn't so bad, actually. It still had the wall-to-wall and the heavy gilded wood and the lion feet, but the bed was big and sturdy and looked comfy enough, underneath the thirteen useless throw pillows and embroidered puffy things and overstuffed bolsters. Of course, maybe Bobby's eyes had just gone numb from overload or something.

So they hung up his clothes and shelved his books, had a debate about which of the closets to fill with the majority of the throw pillows and knick-knacks, and tried out the super-modern low-flow anti-gravity john that made suppressed whooshing noises like a distant subway train.

And just as Bobby was arranging a blanket over the back of the sofa to cover the maximum amount of glitter, the doorbell rang, an extended, silvery chiming tune that had Fawkes lunging for the door to make it stop. 

"Mr. Fawkes?" said the man at the door, holding out his hand. "I've heard a lot about you." 

From what Bobby could see, the guy was a spectacular specimen, although he'd never admit that out loud. He was tall, like Fawkes, but broad and athletic in build, which was not like Fawkes. He had a muscular certainty to his posture that Bobby figured probably came from military service. His head was neatly shaved, his suit was seriously not off-the-rack, and his watch was some brand name Bobby couldn't even afford to look at, let alone own. 

"Yeah?" Fawkes said, as their handshake went up and down and up and down. "Like what?"

"Oh, good stuff, I promise." He smiled affably. "The word's out in certain circles."

"Well...thanks. C'mon in," Fawkes said, extracting his hand and thumbing in Bobby's general direction.

"Hobbes," Bobby said, lifting his chin and stepping forward for his own handshake. They squeezed hard, testing each other out for a few seconds—the guy had dark brown eyes, piercing and amused, with crow's feet at the corners—then settled into a firm, understanding grip. 

"Francis Montague," the guy said, his voice powerful and faintly raspy. "I'm general manager of Harbour Gardens Luxury Homes." Bobby could hear the capital letters in the way the words marched respectfully off his tongue. "I'd like to welcome you to our association, see how you're settling in."

"Thanks," Bobby said, hoping the blanket over the couch just looked like nap-space prep, not a trauma reaction. "It's going pretty good. How about you, what's the problem around here?"

Montague gave a toothy smile. "Straight to business? I like that. Mr. Hobbes, you're going to fit right in."

Bobby smiled weakly (suppressing his desire to say "You take that back!") and Fawkes said, "Mr. Montague—"

"Frank, please." The big smile remained, but something about it seemed tense. 

"Okay, uh, Frank... Our boss said you'd brief us, tell us what this investiga—"

Frank lifted a hand in sharp warning. Yeah, totally former military, and not good at hiding it. "First, may I see some identification?"

Bobby exchanged a look with Fawkes, the kind of look where they had a lot of conversation. It went kind of like, _Intense dude/We've seen worse/But still, pretty high-strung, right/Yeah, can't argue with that/Got your badge on you/I think so,_ and they both pulled out their badge folders and flipped them open. 

Bobby hoped the guy didn't spend much time reading the name of their current division—not everybody had heard of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement—and instead just checked out the engraved seal, which Bobby really liked. Cute little trees, pile of coal, water, a scale that looked like a fancy lamp, it had it all.

Frank examined the IDs and nodded. "Okay. Sorry to insist, but you just never know."

"Riiiight. But what it is that we never know about?" Fawkes asked.

"Spies," Frank said, staring at them intently. 

"Ohhh. Sure. I got you." Fawkes looked pleadingly at Bobby.

Bobby sighed. He wasn't always happy about being the designated Kook Whisperer. "Hey, Mr. Monta—"

"Frank."

"Frank, yeah, hey. We're here for ya. Okay? So tell us what's been going on."

Frank leaned in even closer—Bobby admired his cologne, really subtle, kind of spicy—and told them.

* * *

They heard him out, all the details, the he-said/she-said/they-said. And actually, instead of getting confirmation that Frank was a whackjob, Bobby found himself more and more convinced. 

Fawkes wasn't really on board, though. "But why would these other condos—"

"Luxury Homes," Frank said reprovingly.

"Why would all these places be spying on your board meetings, let alone stealing your brochure copy and your web design and whatever? I mean—no offense, okay, but who cares?"

Bobby shrugged. "I dunno, Fawkes, I mean...think of it like each of these places is its own country. Every little bit of info on your competitors helps you take 'em down, right?"

Frank looked at him with an admiring regard that made Bobby flush up a little bit. "Agent Hobbes," he said, "you are exactly right. I see that Charlie chose well when he sent you."

Fawkes, on the other hand, shot Bobby a look that was not exactly glowing. "Yeah," he said, " _Charlie_ thinks the world of this guy. Uh, Frank, would you excuse us just a minute?" 

He dragged Bobby away for a muttered conference by the sofa. 

"Come on, Hobbes, you cannot be buying this."

"There is such a thing as industrial espionage, Fawkes."

"Industrial—! You mean to tell me that places with names like River Forest and Dandelion Glade are industries now?"

"There's a ton of money wrapped up in these places. A. Ton." Bobby flicked the sofa arm. "I mean, how many of our paychecks would it take to get you one of these bad boys for your very own?"

Fawkes looked horrifed at the thought. "Don't threaten me, man," he begged. "You know I have a sensitive stomach."

"Someone have a birthday coming up?" Bobby asked, grinning.

"Seriously, Hobbes, what are we supposed to do with this guy?"

"How about we investigate?"

Fawkes moaned.

Bobby socked him lightly on the shoulder. "This is a bona fide mole hunt, my friend."

"Tinker Tailor Harbour Gardens."

"Bingo."

Back to the foyer they went, Fawkes's spine gone all scrunchy in a sulk.

"First thing we're gonna need," Bobby said to Frank, who listened to him with gratifying total attention, "is to see the scene of the crime." He ignored the little look Fawkes shot him.

"Information has gone missing from three places," Frank said. "The boardroom, my office, and the executive secretary's desk where the web design goes on. If you'll follow me?"

"Just a sec," Bobby said. "Let me go grab something. You can entertain our guest for a minute, can't you, Fawkes?"

To the sound of Fawkes's eyes rolling, Bobby left them together and went to dig through the cartons in the bedroom closet. He pulled out a shoebox—a good big one, it had come with a pair of his boots—and brought it back. 

"What've you got?" Frank asked. His eyebrows were lowering even as he smiled, giving him a worried look.

Bobby opened the box, beaming proudly down at the devices inside. "Surveillance evasion equipment."

"Bug detectors," Fawkes said, poking through the box. "You been keeping those at your place?"

"It's a private collection."

"Yeah, but I mean, you've bought, what, five of 'em? Just in the time since your stuff got blown up?"

Bobby took the oldest gadget out of the box, brushing a speck of dust off it. "Nah, this guy is an old SXZ-23, a classic—I used to keep it in the van. So it was still safe in there when the rest of my stuff went boom."

"A real collector's item," Fawkes said dubiously.

Bobby gave him a side-eye. "To each his own, my careless friend. Some of us are actually interested in new developments in the world of counter-surveillance and the protection of personal information." He set the 23 carefully on the counter. "The other four are workhorses," he said to Frank, "we'll put them in your board room and wherever."

Frank looked at the 23, showing a healthy level of interest. "Haven't seen that model in a hell of a long time. Does it still work?"

"Does it still work," Bobby scoffed. He dug fresh batteries out of the shoebox, put them in the 23's battery compartment, and turned it on. The display light glowed a reassuring green, and the little screen read OK. "Nice, right? I mean, maybe it's not so good with your more modern webcams or whatever, but it's still a classic."

"I feel better already," Frank said. "Bring it along and we'll give it some work to do."

Bobby hoisted the shoebox and Fawkes scooped up the 23. Frank, his strides long and impatient, disappeared through the front door.

"No no," Bobby said as Fawkes made to follow. "That one stays here. You don't drive a '59 Cadillac Eldorado on the modern freeway, my friend."

"That's...awfully specific."

"It's the one with the giant fins." Bobby shaped them in the air, luscious and dramatic. "Remember, I showed you in that magazine?"

"Uh huh. You want to put him in bubblewrap or something before we go?" Fawkes said, cradling the 23 like a baby.

Bobby didn't dignify that with a response, and Fawkes set it (gently, under Bobby's warning eye) on the coffee table while he retrieved Bobby's new keyring. "I told you you should wear these," he said, slipping the curly red cord over his own right wrist, where the keys jingled delicately against the green of his tattoo.

They got in the elevator, all gleaming polished brass, and Frank beeped the sensor with his own fob. On the ground floor he led them through giant marble hallways, passing two elderly ladies out for a walk with their tiny little dog, one tall woman in a skirt suit and some really intimidating shoes, a middle-aged guy in a terrycloth headband carrying a tennis racket, and a couple of maintenance guys in jumpsuits with toolboxes. Frank spoke kindly to the old ladies and their pooch, deferentially to the businesswoman, and jokingly to Mr. Tennis, gladhanding like a mofo; Bobby elbowed Fawkes, raising his brows. You couldn't say the guy didn't earn his pay.

* * *

They were earning their pay, too, by the end of the day, and no kidding. They snooped through the boardroom and the offices, they wrung out all the details they could get about the other board members ("Moles in the Gardens," Fawkes said dramatically into his ear), they set up the surveillance evasion equipment. Bobby spent some time distracting Frank, while Fawkes asked his way to the bathroom, shimmered out of sight, and slipped into the inner office to do the kind of heavy digging into the files and drawers that Frank might not have been entirely comfortable with. With a good chunk of the day spent lugging boxes around, the end of the initial investigation setup phase had them wiped.

"Ecch," Bobby sighed, holding Fawkes's arm up to the elevator's sensor. There was a musical little peep and the cabin headed smoothly upward, eventually opening in front of the penthouse door. Fawkes unlocked it and they headed in, yawning. 

"Where'd you put the delivery menus?" Fawkes asked.

Bobby waved at a heavy carved sideboard along the wall, full of cupboards and drawers. "See, what'd I tell ya. Pizza every day of your entire life. Gonna get scurvy."

Fawkes shrugged. He approached the sofa as if it might bite. "I'm almost afraid to sit down."

"Yeah, but if you sit on it, you ain't gotta look at it."

"I knew there was a reason I let you stay over so much," Fawkes said, plonking down heavily.

"My wise advice."

"Your advice of great wisdom." Fawkes slowly toppled over sideways. 

Bobby set up the receiver on a side table, making sure four of the circuits were tuned in to the detectors they'd planted down in the offices and boardroom. It hummed contentedly. Nothing yet.

"Nothing y—" Bobby said, looking over at Fawkes. Who was asleep.

Really asleep. Not pretending, or resting his eyes—by now, Bobby could tell. His hair was mashed into the godawful upholstery, his mouth was slightly open, and he'd tucked his legs up in what had to be multiple folds like an accordion. He looked like a gigantic great dane puppy after a long day at the dog park.

No, more than that, he looked...peaceful. To say the least. Bobby found himself smiling down at his hands as he dug through the sideboard for the delivery menus. He'd seen Fawkes sleeping both before the quicksilver madness cure and after, and nothing compared to the post-cure levels of sheer relaxation. 

Especially lately. Bobby was an early riser; the Corps could do that to you. So he'd been getting a front-row seat to crack-of-dawn Darien, shuffling to the kitchen in boxers and bedhead and a sweet, sleepy smile. And day by day, he looked better rested, better content with the morning and the world and everything in it. Bobby wouldn't've missed that show for anything.

He brought Thai and Greek menus over and wedged himself into the remaining space between Fawkes's head and the sofa arm. "So," he said, fanning Fawkes with the menus. "You want the phat phak khom or spanakopita?" Nothing, so he nudged him a few times until he stirred.

"What about the scurvy," Fawkes murmured with his eyes still closed.

"I picked stuff with actual vegetables." 

"Whatever you want." Fawkes wriggled comfortably, pushing his head against Bobby a few times at different angles, before sliding up to use his thigh for a pillow.

Bobby patted his chest. "You better mean that, pal. I don't wanna hear any whining."

Fawkes pulled in a breath, but Bobby cut him off: "Any more than usual, I mean."

"Phat phak khom, side of papaya salad, hold the whining," Fawkes said faintly.

"Deal." Bobby leaned an elbow on him and scanned the Thai menu, taking his own sweet time. Eventually he had a nice little set of choices put together, but as soon as he was ready to call the restaurant, he realized: the phone, a heavy, old-fashioned white-and-gold deal you could use as a blunt instrument, was across the room, squatting on an end table so thickly polished it was like the wood had been buttered. He had a work cell, but it was in his jacket, and his jacket was dangling from an elaborate hat rack way over by the front door. Fawkes's head was heavy with sleep, pinning his legs. He was trapped.

"Trapped," he muttered in soft contentment, and leaned his head against the back of the couch.

The late-afternoon sun slowly reddened as it sank, filling the place with a warm haze. It glinted and sparkled off two big decorative columns that helped give the room such a museumish air; they were twined around and around with gold-plated metal vines, from which hung metal leaves and metal clusters of grapes. Bobby wondered if you could stomp them and make some kind of gold-plated wine. 

If he closed his eyes, he might doze off too. That's how calm he was. Even in a fancy new place he wasn't used to, the combination of the quiet, the gradual sunset, and Fawkes's easy breath made for a tempting lullaby. He kept his eyes open, though, and gazed idly at the ceiling. It was too good a feeling to waste.

The warm light had faded to a mellow dusk by the time Fawkes stirred back to awareness. Bobby looked down at him, watched his eyelashes move in slow, heavy blinks. A dozen wisecracks were lined up and waiting, and behind them some complaints from Bobby's empty stomach. But instead he just rubbed a hand along Fawkes's arm.

Fawkes moved in a sleepy stretch and yawned against his leg. "How can something so ugly be so comfy."

"You mean the sofa, or the pillow?" Bobby asked. 

Fawkes snuffled a laugh and slipped one long, slender hand up to grip Bobby's knee. "Did I just hear Bobby Hobbes underestimating his own pins?"

"Pins?" Bobby said.

"Stems."

"Well..."

"Drumsticks," Fawkes offered, squeezing the muscle just above Bobby's knee. 

"Uch," Bobby said. "Too chickeny."

"'kay, granted. How 'bout gams."

"You think I got gams?"

"You know I do," Fawkes said, and the easy back-and-forth was curling in the depths of Bobby's chest like the first sip of holiday wine.

"Damn right," he answered, and it wasn't even really about his legs at all.

He patted the top of Fawkes's head amiably, the thick tall hair springy against his fingers. Amazing that someone could get their hair so high without it being sticky with product. It felt nice, so he patted again. The hair slipped easily between his fingers, back and forth. Back, and forth.

Fawkes let out a long sigh, and Bobby became aware that he'd been stroking his hand through Fawkes's hair for a while. He might actually have been petting him. 

He peered at Fawkes. "Okay down there?" His voice sounded a little croaky, and he swallowed against a dry throat.

"Yuh huh," Fawkes said lazily. "S'nice."

Bobby had to agree, so he threaded his hand through Fawkes's hair a while longer. It was hypnotic, the texture between his fingers, the warm scalp, Fawkes's head heavy on his thigh, the long body so relaxed it was like he was melting toward the surface of the earth. 

By now a loose warmth had spread all the way along Bobby's shoulders and down the muscles of his back. Not the same kind of taffy-in-the-sun bonelessness as Fawkes, but then, who else on earth could manage that. Even his stomach had settled back down and stopped demanding things. Maybe they'd end up going all the way to sleep and officially skipping dinner. If they woke up later craving a midnight snack, he'd brought the most important basic supplies, and there was some cheese and stuff in the fridge. 

All he knew was, neither one of them was in any shape to get Fawkes back to his own place. And Bobby wouldn't leave Fawkes here alone to wake up with a face full of the Harbour Gardens Horror Couch.

"Hey," he said, leaning over, his voice quiet. His hand stilled in Fawkes's hair, gently cradling his head.

Fawkes opened his eyes. 

And Bobby said, still hushed, "Let's go to bed."

Fawkes's eyes widened, and in the next second Bobby had several thoughts:

1\. He didn't mean it like that.  
2\. The day was long. The bed was big. The couch was horrible. He had a whole speech ready on that last one.  
3\. Couldn't a guy just pet his partner without it being a big deal.  
4\. He really didn't mean it like that.

He made himself breathe in, looking down at Darien nestled in his lap, and was about to start in on the list. 

Darien blinked up at him, his head still warm against Bobby's hand. And there was one more second, in which Bobby had one more thought:

1a. Didn't he mean it like that, though?

The list shoved itself back in at that, the words larger and brighter. But this time he recognized the scramble in his brain, the racing and tangling, the rush to bury things. He breathed himself through it, doing his best to let the scramble and the race and the tangle pass by. Doing his best to hang on to the buried things. The true things. 

Then he rubbed his fingertips against Fawkes's scalp and drew his hand away. "I mean, if you want," he managed, and was kind of amazed that his vibrating heart didn't jump out of his mouth when he spoke. 

Fawkes gazed up at him. He didn't look frozen—his eyes, glittering dark, searched Bobby's face. And his head still rested where it was, trusting and heavy. But he didn't say anything. 

When he opened his mouth at last, it was to pull in a breath, and Bobby had a fraction of a second to panic about either answer—any answer. But then

_BEEEEP_

he found himself off the couch, hunched down with his hand reaching for his nonexistent pistol, and Fawkes was mostly on the floor.

The buzzing-cold aftermath of the adrenaline jolt wasn't very funny, but Bobby was prepared to grin anyway—at the timing, at least. He glanced over at the receiver to see which light had turned red: office, boardroom, secretary's desk, anteroom where the coffee machine was.

They were all green. All still green, nothing to report, quiet as the grave. Bobby stared. 

Then slowly, he turned his head toward the coffee table.

There sat the SXZ-23, his old pal, with the fresh batteries and all. Its light blinked red, and off. And red, and off. Its screen had changed from the reassuring OK to a string of letters and numbers.

"Uh—" said Fawkes, from his faceplant on the carpet. Bobby flung out one hand, and miraculously, Fawkes stopped.

Bobby could hardly hear himself think over the thumping in his chest and his head. Let alone the muttering voice that was basically telling him I TOLD YOU SO in letters a foot high. Being watched, always being watched, knowing that you were never quite alone, and that meant never quite safe. You might think you could change that feeling, with enough therapy and meds and self-talk and practice. But what that did was, it got you lowering your guard. Just enough.

He jumped over Fawkes's sprawled form and ran to his hanging jacket for the cell phone. Under the jacket hung the holster, which he strapped on in record time. He checked the pistol, ejected the clip, reinserted it, quietly put a round into the chamber. His hands tingled like he'd been electrocuted, but they did what he told them and mostly didn't shake.

Shockingly, Fawkes was also doing what he'd told him. He was upright now, sitting on the floor, watching Bobby intently and keeping his mouth shut. Bobby hastily cocked two fingers at him in a beckoning gesture and felt behind himself for the doorknob.

It didn't turn.

He almost panicked there. Just for a second. He turned and yanked the knob with his free hand, pulling on the door with his whole body. His other hand seized and clenched around the pistol, and in his one coherent thought he thanked God for trigger discipline, because otherwise he'd have sent bullets like three different directions into the walls and ceiling.

Fawkes was right behind him now, adding his grip and his not-inconsiderable strength to the effort, but the door was solid metal and didn't budge. Their arms pressed together and their hands tangled on the doorknob, and maybe it was him being so close, but Bobby's reason—or at least, his combat-level awareness—wavered back into focus.

He pushed Fawkes behind him with one stiff arm and snapped off two shots into the latchplate. But although the knob swung around loose now, the door was as immovable as ever. 

So, screw it, why not take advantage of having his own personal cat burglar: he grabbed Fawkes by the sleeve and ran with him across the living room to the windows. If they couldn't climb all the way down, they could go up, and he had the cell to call the Official for a rescue.

The windows didn't open. He swept Fawkes back again and fired at the glass, squinting in case of flying shards. But with a dull _splot_ the bullet pancaked into a gray blob, not even making a dent. He didn't get a lot of chances to see bulletproofing like that close up.

Bobby fought against the urge to squeeze off shot after shot after shot, but just barely. His wrist ached with it. What stopped him was the knowledge that he didn't have his extra clips here; they were still in his locked kit in the van. And seeing the little kiss his point-blank shot had given the window, there was no way he'd be able to chip any serious distance in before he ran out, even if he'd had his kit and two more like it besides.

Now if he'd only bought himself that birthday rocket launcher—

He scrabbled the phone out of his pocket and hit the speed-dial for the Agency. No response, no visible signal, no ringing, nothing. 911, same. Jammed.

He paced in tight circles, his eyes flicking around the room. He'd looked at the bedroom and put stuff in the closets, but he hadn't searched it, not properly. He'd used the bathroom, but he hadn't cleared it—there was a wide latticework double door in there he hadn't even opened, who knew what was on the other side. He had one pistol with the remains of one clip, he had his good knives in the kitchen. Dammit, though, he had them honed just the way he liked them. Knife fights weren't good for the slicing edge. 

Something touched his shoulder and he jerked away, the pistol coming up automatically.

Fawkes raised his hands, his T-shirt riding up at the waist. "Hey, buddy."

Bobby lowered the pistol and shook his head, grimacing a warning, but Fawkes just shrugged. "I think they know we know," he said. "You know? I mean, what with the beeping and the, uh. Gunshots and stuff."

Bobby leaned close, grabbing the front of Fawkes's shirt, and hissed up at him: "I am not gonna debate proper surveillance target procedures with you, okay?"

"Okay," Fawkes said slowly. "Okay. We're gonna take it easy. Right?"

Bobby made his fingers unlock from the shirt, where they left a stretched twist in the fabric. 

"What do you think they want?" Fawkes asked.

Bobby shook his head. Who fucking knew. This was obviously a high-end trap, and he'd fallen right into it. 

"I mean—" Fawkes raised his chin and his volume at the same time, yelling at the ceiling in a skeptical, annoyed voice— "you think maybe they'll tell us now, since we figured out their little bug and everything and time's a-wasting?"

That sent Bobby over to the 23 to examine the code on the screen. He didn't have the booklet—they were harder to come by on the secondary market than the device itself, just like vintage KitchenAid mixers—so he had had to gradually piece the codes together over time. If he remembered this one right, the bugs couldn't be the most cutting-edge; with the latest spread-spectrum stuff the poor old 23 mostly threw error messages. These ones might've been repurposed from home-expo landlord packages, the kind of stuff you might have in the lobby or the elevators to catch kids scratching swear words into the walls.

He brushed past Fawkes, who was still saying "Hello? Hell-LOOO" into the air, and went to the bathroom for a roll of TP, then into the kitchen. A little knife-work extracted the cardboard tube from the roll, leaving the halves of the dismembered paper on the kitchen counter like the ghost of a chopped cabbage.

Back out in the living room, Fawkes had his arms crossed over his chest, frowning at a blank spot on the ceiling that didn't actually have a camera in it. Bobby drew the blinds, and the remains of the peaceful dusk disappeared.

"Hey," Fawkes protested.

"Just stay put." Bobby clicked on his maglite and held it next to the tube over his eye. He started with the windowsills at one end of the room and slowly scanned the light over every edge, crevice, picture, and furnishing, watching intently through the tube.

"Stay put," Fawkes muttered. He bumped around, muffled a curse, and sat back down on the couch with a dramatic and even petulant whoof of air and cushions. "I don't even know, man. Thought this was gonna be some kind of cakewalk, Harbour with a U, doilies everywhere, thought we might get a little time to do regular things. Now here we are in the Roach Motel with the walls moving in to smash us."

Bobby took a second at that to doublecheck the angles between walls and ceiling. No, they weren't moving. Yet, anyway. He took a steadying breath and went back to the scan.

"I don't suppose the Thai place would still deliver to prisoners in the tower?" Fawkes said, not very hopefully.

For Bobby, it was like his stomach had stopped existing; he was nothing but eyes now, watching for the telltale glimmers. It took a while, what with all the fussy gilded ongepotchket nonsense. Bobby had never been a guy for a Zen room with, like, a mat and a vase, but the slow, painstaking scan made him want to move into a bare white cube.

In the end, he found four cameras with slightly-overlapping fields of view, plus one in an overhead light fixture. He doublechecked the sideboard; it had lots of carvings and knobs perfect for camouflaging lenses, and he found a hole but no camera behind it. Maybe that one had conked out. The giant mirror set into the living-room wall with all the gold filigree twirling around the frame was of course a two-way mirror. He stood right up against it and put his maglite on the surface; peering through he could see a dark, empty little room with one chair and a deadbolted metal door.

God, how he wanted to rip every single camera out and flush them right down the fancy toilet. But who knew how much time they had? He grabbed a lamp from a side table and yanked its cord from the wall. Tested its heft. Not as satisfying as a hammer, but you did what you could with what you got.

So he pulled the shade off the lamp, gripped the base tight, and backed up a few running steps from the mirror. Its gilded curlicues glinted even in the dimness, and the glass was spotless. 

_Man_ , that thing needed smashing.

But just as he started his wind-up, there were sounds just outside the front door—muffled, careful, obviously trying for stealth but with too many guys to manage it. Bobby dropped the lamp and drew his pistol. Then abruptly Fawkes was there too, stepping in front of him.

"Out of the way," Bobby growled, shouldering him back.

"You seriously think they're here for you?" Fawkes moved in front again. "They won't shoot the gland incubator."

Bobby jostled with him for a second, until Fawkes grabbed him around the waist and _whoosh_ a shivering current of quicksilver spread through them both. Bobby felt as strange as always, his nerves tickling under the skin like ants, his vision washed to bright grays. He lifted his invisible pistol, Fawkes beside him with a hand pressed to his back.

Whoever they were, they blasted in like a skeleton-crew SWAT team, wedge formation, crouched behind a bulletproof riot shield. Bobby instinctively spanged some shots off the shield at first, then tried for their legs and got someone in the boot, until the rest of the wedge were upon him. They had IR goggles under their helmets and tasers looped around their wrists. 

They were too fucking prepared.

Bobby's last shot hit one of them in the arm. Someone tackled Fawkes, yanking his hand from Bobby; quicksilver sluiced off Bobby into a cloud of crystals, and he watched his hand appear and drive the gun butt against someone's neck. The gagging sound was a pleasure. 

But as he grappled with the guy to knock him down—

"Stop!" came a warning voice.

He didn't, couldn't, for a few more seconds, until his opponent twisted him around hard and Bobby saw two men pinning an invisible form against the wall. They weren't comfortable yet, though—they had no weapons brandished, they were using both hands, and they were heaving back and forth like they were riding a bronco. Fawkes wasn't done yet. So Bobby went for broke and pushed toward them—maybe he could break up the scrum just long enough, maybe they could scramble to the door—

A burning jolt seized him by every muscle, clamped his teeth together, and flung him to the floor. He stared at the fluffy carpet up close, the fibers giant tangled vines in a cream-colored jungle. Then he blinked.

He was looking across the room at the mirror now, that damn thing, and he was upright. His eyes were dry and sore, his stomach muscles ached. A couple turns of rope were wrapped around his chest and behind him to his wrists; he looked to his side to see Fawkes there too, each of them tied to one of the decorated columns. He could feel the fake vines digging into his back and arms. 

"Well," he said hoarsely. "Crap."

Fawkes nodded. "You okay?"

"Course. You?"

"Of _course?_ " Fawkes said indignantly, ignoring the return question. "Right, yeah, you're fine— Your eye's all red, it looks like it exploded or something. Can you even see?" 

With that much bitching, he had to be okay. Bobby stared at his reflection in the mirror, but it was too far away to get a good look at his eyes. He blinked a few times, then closed one eye after the other. They were both scratchy and the vision in the right side was a little hazy, but nothing serious.

"S'called a shiner, Fawkes, and you wouldn't be so squeamish if you had better fight training."

"A shiner, Hobbes, is when you get punched. This is like an alien's busting outta there."

"They bust out your chest, not your eye."

" _If_ they came out of your eye," Fawkes insisted, "that's what it would look like."

"How would they even fit through the—"

"Gentlemen." Montague strode in, body armor strapped around his chest, his expensive trouser legs tucked into combat boots. He sure as hell didn't look affable now.

"Tell him," Fawkes went on almost without a pause. "Frank, tell him that that eye should be in a horror film."

But Montague didn't seem to feel like joining their little movie club. He walked right up to Bobby and loomed over him. "You put two of my guys on the bench," he said. "Doherty will probably need surgery on that elbow."

"Gimme my hands back," Bobby suggested, "so I can write 'em a get well card."

Montague clenched one big fist in Bobby's shirt and hauled him up onto his toes, but there he stopped. "I needed those guys," he said, his voice stiff with restraint. "Maybe after a while you'll agree to sub in."

Bobby kept his expression still. Montague lowered him down and turned away to Fawkes as if Bobby was of no further interest whatsoever.

"Mr. Fawkes."

"Frank," Fawkes said dubiously.

"I'm sorry it had to happen this way. We weren't quite prepared for you."

"Oh, sure," Fawkes said. "Happens to me a lot: the Girl Scouts come by early for their cookie money and I'm all _bam! zap!_ Taser time."

Montague showed his teeth in a polite and bitey smile. "Had I known the extent of your...preparation, I would have handled it differently. It's not every tenant who doubles up on his surveillance detectors."

"Well," Fawkes said philosophically, "you never met Bobby Hobbes."

"No." Montague spoke with distaste. Bobby suddenly wondered how much he'd caught through his little cameras, and how well they'd seen in that dim gray dusk. 

"Why were you even spying on us anyway?" Fawkes sounded hurt. "We were here to do you a favor. We showed you our stupid IDs and everything!"

"It's nothing personal," Montague said soothingly. "We were already getting the place wired up for...other purposes. And then here you were. You're a professional—honestly, tell me you wouldn't take advantage of an opportunity to gather fresh intel."

"Honestly—" Fawkes echoed Montague's earnestness to perfection— "I can tell you that I would never in my entire life use the word 'intel'." 

Montague's smile grew a little more strained. "In any case, I'm hoping that we can let bygones be bygones."

Fawkes looked over at Bobby. "Bygones, the man says."

Bobby cleared his throat and looked Fawkes in the eye like usual. "Bygones. Just lettin' 'em be."

"I'm sure we can work together," Montague said. 

"I'm— You know, Frank, I'm tied to a thing, here." Fawkes leaned forward, straining against the ropes crossing his chest. "Doesn't strike me as working together."

"I know, and like I said, I'm sorry." He put a hand on Fawkes's shoulder. "We got off on the wrong foot. Let's start over, and make a deal like civilized guys."

"What deal is that?"

"You'll do a little job for me. Originally I thought just you, but now..." He cast Bobby a stonefaced look. "What with one thing and another, I could use his help too. Both of you, one quick job and done."

"So, like, contracting out." Fawkes shrugged as much as the ropes would allow. "You must've asked the boss first, right? Your pal Charlie? What did he say?"

"No, obviously," Bobby interjected. "He told ol' Frank to get bent."

Montague squeezed the muscle of Darien's shoulder. "He'll change his mind," he said, with a smile Bobby didn't like. Not as if he'd really liked the others, but this one was a new low.

"How 'bout you let me give him a call and ask again?" Bobby said, and Montague turned that smile on him. Yeah, no good.

"Sure," Montague said, to his surprise. "In a minute. Just, first, Mr. Fawkes. Darien. Go invisible, okay?"

Fawkes eyed him dubiously. "You already saw how it works. You and your funky fresh taser crew."

"I was a little busy at the time."

"Your attention deficit is not my problem, pal."

Montague leaned in. Something about his body language prickled the back of Bobby's neck. "Humor me."

"Gee," Fawkes replied. "So hard to imagine why I wouldn't want to do that."

At the last word, Montague's hand slid smoothly from Fawkes's shoulder to his throat and pressed in a simple front choke. 

"Let him go!" Bobby dug his heels into the column, lunging against the ropes across his chest, twisting his wrists hard enough to burn.

"Invisible, Darien," Montague said encouragingly. Fawkes's eyes were wide, his face reddening, but he didn't obey.

"What're you gonna do?" Bobby jammed himself so hard against the ropes that his ribs gave a stab of pain. "Knock him out? He can't go invisible then either, genius!"

"We'll see." Montague must've had some practice, because he eased off just enough to let Fawkes take in a little air, then gripped tight again. Fawkes writhed inside his bonds. One leg lashed out awkwardly, but Frank had no trouble keeping to the side.

"He's no good to you dead," Bobby insisted. 

"He's not a trained agent," Montague said. "He'll see reason." 

"Reason? Him? You gotta be kidding." Bobby was ready to keep arguing, anything to get Montague's attention away from Fawkes, let alone his big square hand off of Fawkes's neck.

"I'm sure he'll come around," Montague said, easing off again. He smiled at his own emphasis, just a tiny bit, like it was some kind of pun to be proud of—"come around", ha fuckin ha. Bobby's molars ground together. His wrists flared steadily now with rope burns, metal leaves and grapes were sticking him in the back and legs, but he kept twisting and straining.

Fawkes sucked for air and shook his head. "Frank," he said, a little hoarsely, "don't make me send a sternly-worded letter to the Harbour Gardens board of directors."

Montague grabbed his neck again, this time with a jerky anger he hadn't shown before. Fawkes stared him down while his face went dusky red.

"I _told_ you," Bobby said earnestly. "It's not gonna work. He don't operate that way." Privately, he wondered why the hell not: Fawkes was no Rambo, to say the least. But what he definitely was was stubborn—stubborn and brave, even to suicidal levels.

Seemed like Montague was starting to realize it, too. "What do you want?" he snapped at Fawkes, letting go. "Do I have to say pretty please?" 

Fawkes coughed and spat; Montague just barely dodged. "I want your request in writing," he croaked. "In a sonnet."

Montague stared at him, his fist working.

"Not a Shakespearian sonnet, either," Fawkes managed. "Spenserian or nothing."

"I've been asking nicely." Montague put his hand on Fawkes's shoulder again.

Bobby wasn't sure if Fawkes could sense the actual desperation building in Montague's eyes, the looming violence crackling through his muscles. "Hey, Fawkes," he said as casually as he could. "Go ahead, one little taste, give him a thrill." 

Fawkes looked over at him, his jaw and his eyes set. "Man, I charge a lot more for _thrills_." 

Bobby kept their gazes locked, straining to get across how important this was, but it wasn't working. Montague breathed through clenched teeth for a few seconds, and Fawkes was in actual danger—but then the moment passed, and Montague took a step back. He considered both of them with hard eyes.

"If you have any influence," he said at last, walking over to Bobby's column, "you better use it."

"Influence is overstating it," Bobby said in all good fellowship, grinning. "I do what I can, you know, but he ain't used to the major leagues."

"You should explain it to him."

He was moving in a little too close to be comfortable; Bobby had to crane upward to meet his eyes. Bobby tried to look relaxed, in his ropes and all, but his spine was buzzing signals at him that were nearly overloading him like a sparking fuse.

"Sure, glad to. Could you give us a minute? Little privacy?"

Montague looked down at him, mouth curling, and for a second Bobby expected him to say a few words about what he'd already seen them get up to in "privacy".

"I have another idea," he said instead, and with one short, hard jab he punched Bobby in the solar plexus.

Bobby couldn't breathe. It wasn't that his air had whooshed out, like with a regular belly hit; it was that everything in his chest had just...stopped. No breathing in or out, no power in his muscles, no ability to hold himself up against the pressure of the column in his back. He sagged in the ropes, spikes of numbness spreading down his arms. 

"Bobby?" he heard Fawkes say. His voice had a thready, uneven sound, and Bobby reflexively wanted to joke him out of it, bring back that lazy, bright-eyed, screw-you tone he'd been spitting at Montague. But there was nothing he could do; he just had to wait it out. So he shook his head—best he could manage—and hung there in that long, long moment of airless numbing pain until his lungs suddenly remembered their job.

At last, he managed to breathe in shallowly, staggering his feet back under himself and flexing his aching arms. He peered up at Montague, who was watching him as calmly as an honor student with an ant farm. "What was that about? I didn't even do nothing." 

"Neither did Mr. Fawkes," Montague said. "How about it, Darien? Invisibility time yet?"

"Man, you can just stick your—" Fawkes started, and Montague pounded two more precision strikes into Bobby, just under the ribs, left side/right side.

The air whooshed out this time, but even though those punches hurt plenty on their own, they were frankly so much less scary than the solar plexus kill-switch feeling. He wished he had the breath to tell Fawkes. He shook his head again, slowly, trying to be reassuring.

"Here, dude, look," Fawkes insisted urgently, and Bobby turned his head to see the ropes curving over empty space. "Okay? You wanna calm down a little?"

"Fawkes," Bobby wheezed. "It's nothing."

"You can shut up," Fawkes answered, his voice still tight and thin. The ropes did a little wriggle in the air, and quicksilver flecks showered everywhere to reveal Fawkes looking anxious and pissed off. "Okay? We good?"

"Again," said Montague, and he checked his watch.

" _Uch,_ " Fawkes said. He faded back out really slowly, starting with his feet, the thick silver ooze swallowing him like The Blob. He left his face for last, then just his angry eyes, then nothing. And then it undid itself in reverse, sparkles shedding from the top down, slow and deliberate.

"Okay," Fawkes said, sullen. "Ta da."

"Again."

Fawkes gave such a giant, petulant sigh that Bobby half-expected him to turn into a teenager for real. Instead he just faded out even more slowly this time, in jerky stripes and blotches, like he was making a special effort to make sure it didn't look cool at all. Which took some doing; Bobby usually loved to watch the quicksilver flow and ripple, as liquid and agile as Fawkes himself.

Montague was not enjoying the finer distinctions. He stared impatiently, glowering. 

Fawkes burst the quicksilver off all at once this time, _paff!_ , in a sudden, fine spray like fireworks. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."

"More," Montague insisted. But before Fawkes could do anything, Bobby used his recharged lungs to butt in.

"No way," he said. "He's done enough. Now are you gonna get our boss on the phone or what?"

He half-expected another punch somewhere fun, but he didn't get it. Instead, Montague stepped up really close to Fawkes, making Bobby tense. He didn't hit him, though—he just peeled up each sleeve of his T-shirt in turn, frowning at his upper arms.

"What," Fawkes said. "You think I slack off too much on tricep day?"

"Where is it?" Montague asked, yanking at the neck of the T-shirt to peer down Fawkes's bare chest.

"Quit!" Fawkes tried to jerk away, and swore when a metal vine got him someplace sensitive.

"The tattoo." Montague grabbed Fawkes by the nape of the neck and bent him forward against the ropes to look down the back of his shirt. 

While Montague was busy with an eyeful of spine, Fawkes managed to toss a baffled look to Bobby. And from the way that look on Fawkes's face suddenly changed, Bobby hadn't been able to keep the major part of his reaction to himself. 

This all meant that Montague knew about the tattoo, which counted down the approach of quicksilver madness in the bad old days before the cure. And he _cared_ about the tattoo, which meant he wanted to see how fast it was going red. Or maybe he wanted to check whether it was going red at all.

Either way, it was really bad news. The worst. And Bobby wasn't sure if Fawkes had ever fully realized this—just how vulnerable the cure had made him.

After all, if some scumbag wanted to kidnap Fawkes for whatever scumbaggy reasons, there used to be a ticking clock. You couldn't keep Fawkes away from the counteragent too long or else he blew a gasket, and that mostly meant you couldn't keep Fawkes away from the Agency too long. The same thing that had shackled him to government work had, weirdly, kept him safe in a lot of ways.

Now he still had the invisibility gland but no allergy to the byproducts. And that fact had given Fawkes such control over his own destiny, and such a huge measure of peace—that same peace that let him sleep like a sprawled puppy even while Bobby watched. Bobby had never wanted to bring up the other half of the bargain, maybe for fear of whistling it up like a windstorm: now whoever got their hands on Fawkes had nothing stopping them from taking him wherever they wanted, as far as they wanted, for as long as they wanted. No need for counteragent meant no bargaining power on the part of the Agency. Fawkes was free, and if that freedom got around, every intelligence group, every foreign government, every terrorist, they'd all want him. They'd all know they could have him. 

"Shit," Montague muttered, standing behind Fawkes's column and staring at the snake on his inner wrist. Bobby knew what he was seeing: it peacefully swallowed its own tail, now and (hopefully) forever colored a calm green. "They topped you off before they sent you over, huh?"

Fawkes didn't answer. His focus was somewhere in the middle distance. 

"Look, Frank—" Bobby tried, but Montague interrupted him: "Come on, Darien, let's go. I really don't have all day."

"Maybe I'm on strike," Fawkes said.

Montague glared over at Bobby as if measuring him for a really uncomfortable suit.

"More massage?" Bobby asked. "Great, I got a knot you can work on, riiiiight here." 

Montague rubbed both hands over his own shaved head. Bobby saw he was sweating, the scalp shiny with it. Then he turned and left, slamming the door. They heard electronic locks clicking into place, one after the other after the other.

"Condo living," Fawkes said into the fresh silence, but his heart didn't seem to be in it.

"Yeah," Bobby said.

Fawkes started to say something else, this time in a low, confiding voice; Bobby, thinking about cameras and mikes and that big stupid mirror, interrupted him.

"How about you listen to me for a change, huh? I said it was nothing, it was nothing. I don't want you using up all your juice on this douchebag."

Fawkes looked at him. And Bobby's nerves were strung so tight, his fear spiking so high, that he honestly couldn't tell how far Fawkes was following. It felt bad, a sick ball in his belly. He'd let himself forget what that felt like, to look into Fawkes's big dark soft sarcastic eyes and not be able to read them like _Time_ magazine.

"You know what Woodsy Owl says," he went on, doing his best. "You gotta _conserve_." 

"I thought," Fawkes answered slowly, "he said Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires."

"Only if Smokey Bear ate him," Bobby said.

Fawkes coughed out a laugh, easing his position against the ropes. 

The locks clicked, and Montague came back in, walking fast and harried. He was wearing glasses and gloves now, as well as a small backpack that Bobby couldn't get a good look at.

"Mr. Fawkes," Montague demanded, the gravel in his voice pronounced. "Turn yourself invisible."

"Um, how should I put this," Fawkes said, managing to slouch somehow even in his ropes. "No, or hell no?" This made Bobby feel like Fawkes might have followed his thoughts a hundred percent, you never knew. If Fawkes stopped resisting like a man who genuinely feared the madness, Montague would figure it out. But on the other hand, maybe he was just saying no because Montague wanted a yes so bad.

"I'm still asking nicely," Montague said. "So let's be nice."

"Aw. Did I hurt your feelings?" Fawkes said. "Okay, how about fuck-no-untie-me?"

Montague took a few steps backward, unholstering something from behind his hip, and oh, god, Bobby recognized that backpack now, it was a miniaturized portable flamethrower.

"Fawkes—!" he shouted.

Fire roared out of the nozzle Montague gripped in his gloved hands, licking over Fawkes's torso. Whether it was Bobby's shout or pure instinct or both, Fawkes went invisible just as it touched him, the flame curling around his icy silhouette before he was entirely obscured.

The flamethrower stopped. 

"Jesus!" Bobby said. "What's the matter with you!" The bonds trapping Darien's invisible body strained in midair. The ropes were unscathed, and the care obviously taken to use fireproof material made Bobby feel cold all over.

Fawkes's face reappeared. He looked pale but unhurt. "Not cool, man."

"Asking nicely wasn't working," Montague said.

"I never did get that pretty please." The rest of Fawkes faded in, and the quicksilver particles shed and bounced and vanished.

Montague came forward and looked at him carefully. "How are you feeling?"

"How'm I— Well, Frank, I don't mind telling you I'm _a little tense!_ "

"Your eyes aren't even as red as his yet," Montague said, hitching a thumb toward Bobby. "Sorry."

He backed up, the flame leapt out again, and Fawkes was gone. Bobby knew the active quicksilver would protect him, at least for now, but he'd always tuned the Keep out when she started going on about it, blah blah temperature gradients blah high radiant load blah blah blah. He completely admired her ability to talk for an hour without one word in actual English, he really did, but now he wished more than ever that he'd asked for the edited-for-TV version.

"Frank," he said urgently, hot air billowing over and past him. "You're gonna—!"

This time Fawkes took longer to fade back in. He was wary and stiff, watching Montague with wild eyes.

"You're gonna set your nice place on fire," Bobby went on, moderating his volume, trying to be reasonable. "And we don't even know where the fire escape is."

"You underestimate my aim. Come on the mission, and you'll see." He lifted the nozzle.

"Weren't you gonna—" Bobby started, and there was another loud _whoosh_ , turning Fawkes into a tall, lanky man-shape of fire and ice. "—gonna call our boss and talk it over?"

Montague watched Fawkes with narrowed eyes. Fawkes went visible gradually, but defiantly, his chin high.

"I don't want to bother him until it's a little clearer I have something to trade," Montague said. "Make it more important for him to send me some of the counteragent, and fast."

_whoosh_

Bobby watched the scene play out for what felt like an hour, though the fuel capacity of the modified tank couldn't have been much more than thirty or forty seconds all told. But those forty seconds were parcelled out over a good long time in precise half-second gusts, unpredictable, sudden, and jarring. Fawkes stayed gone longer each time, and when he did appear, he was haggard and sweating and swaying on his feet. The hem of his shirt and the edge of one sleeve were singed.

Bobby shouted at Montague until his throat started feeling the rasp. Then he clamped his mouth shut, his teeth on his tongue, and stared intently at Fawkes whether visible or not. He worked hard on jamming the wrist-loop behind his back up onto the strongest of the metal pieces, using the tips and edges of the vines and leaves to good advantage. If Montague had been watching him, it would've been impossible, having to keep his shoulders still. But old Frank only had one interest in this room, and it was Fawkes, the toy he wanted most in all the world.

Bobby slipped a few times in his jabbing and scraping of the rope against the metal, getting himself in the wrists and arms. Warm threads of liquid smeared over his skin and slowly cooled there, while he worried the rope filaments apart and sweated from the reflected heat and watched Fawkes suffer. 

Any minute now, the thing would run out of fuel and Montague would check the tattoo again. They could play it as if the gauge took a long time to register, or as if the madness took a lot longer to kick in than people knew. He might fall for it. But not forever.

Finally, with a jerk and pull that gouged one forearm along a protruding grapestem, the rope was frayed through. A loop was still knotted around one wrist, and he kept tension on the rope with his other hand so the crisscross over his chest wouldn't drop down too soon and give the game away.

He took a few big breaths, ignoring the twinges in his ribs. The latest blast of fire stopped.

"Fawkes!" he said firmly. "Stay faded, buddy."

He could hear Fawkes's panicky breathing, see the ropes over his invisible chest flexing.

"S'okay. You still got plenty of time." 

Darien didn't answer, but his breathing gradually slowed, and he didn't reappear. Bobby wondered which direction he was looking. He nodded anyway, putting his thoughts into his eyes.

Montague checked a little dial on the nozzle and reholstered it. "So," he said to Bobby. "You'd rather have him risk quicksilver madness than third-degree burns. That's sweet." 

Bobby shrugged—but carefully, so as not to dislodge his ropes.

"I'm sure Charlie would too," Montague said, "since he can reverse the one but not the other. But there's another option, which would suit all our purposes. Charlie gives me enough counteragent to keep Darien well for the duration of the mission, we do the work, you two are free to go, we can all forget this ever happened." 

"We can't just skip to that last part?" Bobby asked.

Montague reached for the nozzle again.

"Just asking," Bobby said. He lowered his voice. "Okay, say I agree with you. Say we decide to contract out. Then it would be our deal, right, yours and mine and Fawkes's? There's some stuff that maybe the boss doesn't need to know about."

"Do you carry counteragent with you?" Montague perked up for the first time in a while.

"No, what, you crazy?" Bobby jerked his chin a couple times in a friendly beckon, and spoke even lower. "Like the Agency would let him run around free, nothing to bring him home by curfew." 

Montague was drifting over, leaning in to hear him, interested. "Then what?"

"Well, look." Bobby eyed Fawkes's ropes, which were very still, and sank his voice to a husky whisper. "There's something about Fawkes you need to know."

Montague came closer.

"The thing is, Frank," Bobby said. He leaned against his chest ropes. "The thing is..."

Montague came a little closer...

Perfect.

Bobby whipped one knee up and both arms around, and Montague pitched forward into him. They scrambled on the carpet, grappling, the rope loosely tangled under them, hampering one of Bobby's wrists. Montague got in another body punch and one poorly-aimed palm strike to Bobby's cheekbone. Bobby kept forcing him onto his back hard on top of the little flamethrower tank, getting him into joint locks and holds, keeping him busy struggling out of them. If he could just get a good choke, or somehow use the rope—

But Montague had him in weight and reach, and kept fighting free, though never quite able to get to his feet. And he still had body armor around his chest, which wasn't doing Bobby any favors. He felt himself starting to flag.

"Bobby!" Darien shouted, and there was the sound of the door opening. Bobby's adrenaline surged. He grabbed the nozzle off Montague's belt and hit him with it, desperately, looking up. A man in a watch cap, body armor, and one boot stared at them from the door, holding a little gas can in one hand. Then he dropped the can and ran limping forward to fling himself into the scrum.

Bobby lost track. He thought he might've taken a few more punches. He sure as hell used the nozzle as a weapon indiscriminately, and he didn't hesitate to target the wounded foot and send the new guy writhing. He leapt on new guy's back to drop a loop of rope around his throat, when Montague's voice rose from a little distance in a rough shout:

"Enough!"

The rope went tight around Watch Cap's neck; Bobby put a knee in his spine and added enough tension to make him yelp. Then he blinked in the direction of the shout, breathing hard and tasting copper.

Montague stood beside Fawkes's column with a blade pressed to nothing—a nothing about neck-high to a tall, lanky man.

"Mr. Hobbes," Montague said warningly.

Bobby, his pulse fluttering and his vision wavering at the edges, yanked on the rope. Watch Cap bucked underneath him.

"It won't work," Montague said. He sounded almost sad. The tip of the knife rested against nothing. "We didn't even serve together. He's nothing to me."

Watch Cap made a protesting noise.

"But Darien." Montague pressed his free hand against the invisible shape, holding him still under the blade's point. "He's something. To you."

Bobby clenched his fists on the rope until Watch Cap's breath gurgled. "To you too," he said, spitting the words out from a mouth gone dry. "You need him for your little thing. Or else what's any of this for?"

"Oh, I'm not going to kill him." Montague moved the blade delicately upward, tracing the back of it along a contour in the air. Bobby could see Fawkes's face in the outline as well as he could when it was visible. He looked right where Fawkes's eyes would be.

Then he relaxed his hold on the rope. He didn't resist when Watch Cap crawled out from under him and struggled to stand.

"I oughta knock you the fuck out," the man snarled down at him.

Bobby grinned, which made his split lower lip sting. "C'mon then, tough guy."

"Reed!" Montague commanded. Reed stopped, but barely, glowering. "Go on back down, clean yourself up."

Reed transferred his glower to Montague. Bobby wondered if he was about to get into the "nothing to me" problem right now, and silently cheered the guy on.

"I'm gonna need you to drive me on a little errand shortly," Montague said, as if his squaddie wasn't seriously considering fragging him into next week. "Once I give Charlie a call."

His matter-of-fact tone, his authority, some confidence in his bearing, who knew—Reed responded to it, and turned away at last to limp himself obediently out the door. Maybe this was how the Official had actually run an agency for so long without getting thrown out a window, some magical commanding-officer mojo.

"I don't need him around to threaten you," Montague said, sheathing his knife. "Because you and I both know we're not going to have any more trouble. We have to work together now. For Darien's sake. Right?"

Bobby was slowly finding himself able to think again. It was crucial that Montague not check Fawkes for red eyes or a red tattoo just now. And the sooner the cavalry heard about their little problem, the better. "Right," he said, as if surrendering to an honorable opponent, offering his sword hilt-first or some damn thing. "It's a deal. Make the call."

Montague pulled a phone from his pocket and walked away toward the mirror, keeping an eye on them. Bobby slowly got up, picking at the rope where it trailed from his wrist. He hurt dully all over.

Fawkes was still invisible, and still quiet. Bobby went over to the column. "All right?" he asked. His mouth was so dry.

The ropes shifted. "Is there a form of 'all right' that includes this situation?"

Bobby couldn't really think of an answer. His legs were starting to get that cool and shivery feeling that meant he should maybe sit down. He rocked on his toes and heels to keep the blood going. 

"I mean," invisible-Fawkes went on, "I'm fine and all, I guess, but you don't have to look at yourself."

Bobby's eyes kept flicking around the room to the spots where he knew the cameras were. Who was sitting on the other end, keeping an eye on the larger situation? Limping Reed? Whatsisname with the shattered elbow? And Montague had had one other guy in his tactical squad behind the shield—who was that, and where was he?

"Hey, Bobby," Fawkes said.

Bobby stared over at the mirror. No one had been behind it before—but was someone in there now? And where did the door behind it go?

"I'm sorry, man."

"Why," Bobby said, watching Montague murmuring into his phone. 

"Maybe I should've bitten him or something."

He focused at last on the source of Fawkes's voice. "What? Who?"

"Mr. Clean." Fawkes's ropes moved restlessly. 

"Yeah, and lose an eye." Bobby took a couple casual steps around behind the column, reaching for the knot holding Fawkes's invisible wrists.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Montague said firmly, coming over to them, holding the phone away from his ear. "We made a deal."

"Yeah," Bobby said, drawing the word out as if explaining the alphabet to a labrador. "So nobody needs tying up, do they."

Montague actually smiled. A goose egg was puffing up on his forehead from some strike of Bobby's, but he looked the happiest he'd been all day. "Point," he said. "Go ahead. And Darien...remember, I still have infrared goggles. Not to mention the counteragent, pretty soon. Just a word to the wise."

Bobby looked at the phone. "Let me talk to him."

"Here." Montague, no fool, hit the speakerphone button instead. "We can all listen."

"Hobbes!" came the irascible voice through the little speaker.

"Yes, sir."

"What the hell is going on over there?"

Fawkes suddenly shouted toward the phone: "Your little friend mauled Bobby! And tried to set me on fire! I don't like it here!"

"Frank," the Official said. "Did you set my agents on fire?"

"No, no," Montague replied. "Mr. Fawkes is fireproof."

"Still."

"Charlie, you know I wouldn't have done it if there were any other way."

"What?" Fawkes shouted incredulously.

"If I hadn't said no the first time, you mean," said the Official.

Montague shrugged at the phone. "You know we always used to say that No was just a starting point."

The Official gave a faint, rumbling growl.

"Sir?" Bobby said. "I don't know if Frank told you or what, but Fawkes has been quicksilvering up a storm over here. He needs a shot."

"He told me." The flat tone gave nothing away. "Looks like he has us over a barrel, don't you think?"

"Fraid so, sir."

A pause, and a sigh. "All right, boys, listen. I'm changing my mind. Loaning you out. From this point on, what he says, goes. Obey him the way you obey me."

"Yes sir," Bobby said, thinking about just how Fawkes didn't obey anybody at all.

"I'm serious, Hobbes. Behave, the both of you. Just like that time I loaned you out to the Department of Transportation."

"I understand, sir."

"Darien?" the Official prompted.

"Fine," Fawkes said, every letter dripping with sulk.

"You won't regret this," Montague said. "I'll have them back to you safe and sound by tomorrow night."

"Fair enough. But next time you feel like arguing with me, argue with _me_. Don't set my personnel on fire."

Montague laughed mellowly. It was obvious he was getting everything he'd ever wanted. "How soon can you bring me the counteragent?"

There was a murmuring pause. "My lab director says two hours, for the immediate treatment plus enough for the mission. We'll set up a meet halfway."

"Charlie!" Montague said, twirling the phone on his palm. "Don't you trust me?"

He thumbed the speaker off and wandered away toward the mirror again, chatting about meet protocols. Bobby went back to untying Fawkes's invisible wrists. He knew that any minute, Montague was going to realize—

"Darien!" Montague was over by the front door now, one hand on the knob. "I can call you Darien now, right? Time to stop. In fact, you better. We still have a couple hours until your fix."

Fawkes instantly reappeared in a sparkle of dissolving quicksilver. "Well hey," he said with flat loathing. "Thanks."

"How're you feeling?"

"Not great."

Montague frowned. "Can you make two hours?"

"Sure he can," Bobby said. "Right, Fawkes?"

Fawkes didn't answer, pulling the last of the rope off himself and throwing it to the floor.

"I'll be back as soon as I have it," Montague said. "Then your shot, and then you and I and Sorenson will suit up and hit the road." He smiled aggressively at Bobby. "Hope you really are worth two guys, because we sure could've used Reed and Doherty."

"Oops," Bobby said.

"If this is you behaving..." Montague lifted one arm and waved toward the spot where Bobby had found the foyer camera. Locks clunked inside the door, and he pulled it open. "Get some rest. Put on some bandaids or something. You look like shit."

One more sharkish smile and he was gone, the electronic locks clicking shut.

Bobby paced over to the foyer camera, giving it a look out of the corner of his eye, before walking past the mirror. He did a little mental math. If Doherty was out of the picture, with his elbow, and Reed was driving to the meet, it sounded like only Sorenson was left. Presumably watching the cameras, rather than sitting in the little room behind the mirror.

There was only one way to find out. Bobby picked up the lamp he'd had before, hefted it. Then he forced himself to put it back down, and paced to the foyer and back again.

The Official had given them a message in no uncertain terms. The time they'd been on loan to the Department of Transportation, they'd ended up having to hide inside a crate, which was inside a van, which was inside a transport container, which was inside a truck with a Wide Load sign on it. Their survival had entirely hinged on hunkering down, waiting for orders, and not making things worse. The mission had become a byword at the Agency: it meant Stand Down Or Else.

So really, Bobby should just stop. Have a seat, maybe. See where Montague kept the bandaids.

But he couldn't keep from thinking about the cameras. What kind of display was he on? Big screen, divided into squares? Or one of those cycling feeds that switched from camera to camera at set intervals? Ol' Frank had complained about not being prepared for them—so how many inputs had he planned for in the first place?

He stalked past the cameras, glanced up at the light fixture and over at the mirror, turned on his heel, stalked back again. He tried to pace it so that each camera zone got the same amount of time.

"Bobby."

He imagined Sorenson watching him. Maybe spattered with blood from poor Doherty's elbow, or Reed's foot. Seeing Bobby, everything about him, from every angle, into and through him.

"Bobby? Bud?"

Course it didn't do any harm just to be recorded. Wasn't like he was doing anything wrong. And the secrets he did have, the secrets of the box inside the van inside the container inside the truck—and more important, the secret of Fawkes, his green tattoo, his farewell to quicksilver madness, his soft and peaceful night's sleep—they were all safe. The cameras couldn't see inside his head.

Even the one in the light fixture, sending its rays in on beams of light, piercing through Bobby's pupils and bouncing off his retina, signalling into the brain.

As he passed again by the bugged fixture, Bobby suddenly turned, seized a heavy statuette shaped like a shepherd and shepherdess hand-in-hand, and flung it. The scalloped glass enclosure and the bulb exploded into shards.

"Bobby!" Fawkes was by him now, his long legs easily matching Bobby's perimeter-guard pacing. "You okay?"

"Shh!" Bobby counted his steps. Each camera got the same amount. It was a lot more even now without those light beams getting in. 

"Come on," Fawkes said, slipping in front of him and walking backward. "How about we just...settle down a minute. Find some icepacks. A little Visine for your taser eye."

Bobby drew a silencing hand across his own throat. Something about the step count was nagging at him. It was the mirror. Not a camera, not even manned—supposedly. But you never knew. It wasn't like the cameras, with their little lights gleaming to tell you they were awake and watching. A mirror just sat there, waiting for you to look into it, to look into your own eye to ask yourself the hard questions.

He stooped and retrieved the statue. The shepherd had a big chip missing from his nose now.

"Bobby, wait—"

With a hard overhand fastball he pitched it through the mirror, which shattered into jagged pieces. Pointy chunks hung from the top of the frame like icicles. 

Bobby ran for the frame and climbed through, scratching himself on shards of glass. The metal door on the other side was sealed up tight, the chair was dusty. Nothing under the table. He paced the perimeter of the little cube, counting the steps until they settled evenly and he could climb back out.

He turned to pace past the cameras again and Fawkes was in his way. "Hobbes. Hobbes! Bobby, come on, come on."

Bobby hushed him and tried to keep walking, but Fawkes was immovable. He put his hands on Bobby's shoulders and looked down at him. "Frank was right about one thing," Fawkes said. "We do kind of look like shit."

Bobby frowned up absently at him. He kept thinking about how this must look on camera, Fawkes gently squeezing his shoulders, head tipped down, so close and earnest.

"Come give me a hand," Fawkes said. "Just for a minute. See if that guy left his stupid fingerprints on my neck."

The rush of thoughts was quieting down, as if Fawkes was smoothing them under his palms. Bobby blinked a few times and shook his head to clear it. He could see a reddish bruise blooming on Fawkes's long throat, from Montague's choking hand.

"We should, uh..." he said uncertainly. "Get some ice on that."

"Get some ice on that," Fawkes echoed in rhythmic agreement. "We got lots of places that need a little ice." He lifted one hand to carefully touch a spot on Bobby's cheekbone, which twinged.

"Yeah," Bobby said. "Okay."

"Okay." Fawkes let his hands slide off Bobby and turned toward the kitchen. Bobby followed. While Fawkes rummaged in the freezer, Bobby squinted carefully at each piece of Country Gingham Decor. No camera. No camera. No camera. At least, nothing yet. 

"Come on," Fawkes said, hoisting a little bin of cubes on one hip like a laundry basket for penguins.

This time Bobby followed him into the bathroom. The spangled gold-and-white counters and mirrored cabinets gleamed under the lights, spiking a tiny headache into Bobby's temple.

"Sit down," Fawkes said, plopping himself onto one of the padded benches and gesturing at the other. "Let's ice up."

Bobby rubbed his hands together, warming them, looking around rapidly at all the lights and mirrors where the cameras must be. The heel of one hand hurt faintly, like he'd bruised it on someone. "Just a minute."

Fawkes studied him. "You want to give it the once over before we settle in?"

Bobby didn't need to be asked twice. He darted out to retrieve his maglite from the living room, then stepped back in, wary.

"Hokay," Fawkes said. "Blastoff." He snapped off the bathroom lights.

Bobby lit up his flash and slowly scanned it along the surfaces, the light fixtures, the mirrors. It was hypnotic. He was ready, more than ready, to catch the tiniest glints of lenses and LEDs. He was good and slow and thorough. Fawkes followed along, right behind his shoulder, staring hard at the circle of light. He started to say something when Bobby began his second circuit of the room, but fell silent and just backed him up. 

"Nothing," Fawkes said at last, just before the second circuit might have headed into a third. "That's a relief. Something especially gross about snoops in the powder room."

"Why's it clean?" Bobby asked suspiciously. 

"I don't know," Fawkes said. "Maybe he couldn't find anyone willing to watch me clip my toenails."

Bobby clicked the maglite off. The room fell completely dark.

"Whoops." Fawkes bumped into him softly and slipped past him with steadying hands. "Sorry. Watch your eyes." The lights flared back up.

Bobby passed by the soft benches and the bin of ice, and stood in front of the latticework double doors. "Must be in here," he said. "I mean, you don't waste all these hiding places..."

He flung the doors open one at a time, holding the maglite almost protectively in front of him.

Built-in padded benches circled an octagonal room: another sparkly gold-and-cream bonanza, with more of the curling metal vines and golden clusters of grapes along the columned walls. In the center was a sunken hot tub, warm steam hovering above the limpid water. Cream towels with gold piping were piled on a rack.

"Jacuzzi!" Fawkes sang out. "Maybe not as nice as ice, but oh, man, could I use a jet right in the lower back."

"Hsst!" Bobby said to him, waving a suppressive hand.

"Right," Fawkes said, and snooped along the wall until he found a dial. It dimmed the little room's lights down and off.

Bobby closed the double doors and ran his light slowly along the walls, the vines, the few tracklights overhead. Still nothing. It didn't make any sense.

"Lookin' good," Fawkes said at the end of the scan, dialing the lights back up. Then he dialed them down again halfway. "Ah, there we go. This stuff goes down better when you can't see as much of it."

Bobby looked urgently around. Where were they? They had to be somewhere.

"Bubbles," Fawkes said with immense satisfaction, and hit a switch. The pool burbled to life, underwater jets humming and fizzing. 

He ambled to a bench, peeling his T-shirt off over his head. His body was long and smooth and unmarked by the flamethrower, though there were a couple scrapes on his back that looked like collateral damage from the grapes.

"Last one in is a rotten egg!" Fawkes said, and shucked his pants in one bending swoop. They caught on his shoes, and he toppled easily onto the bench, struggling free of shoes and socks and pants all in one tangle. Then it was just him and his boxers, his hair fluffed up from the T-shirt, and he might as well have been sleepy morning-Darien. If morning-Darien had had choke marks on his throat, and rope burns on his wrists.

Fawkes hooked his thumbs in his skivvies and slipped them down, leaving them in the pile of clothes and shoes that looked like he'd melted there. His tan stopped so low on his body, even below his sharp pelvic bones, leaving just the small, tight curves of his ass pale and downy as a white peach. He stood languidly with one hip cocked, and this wasn't familiar morning-Darien anymore. This was something else. 

Fawkes splashed down the pool's steps and sank to his chin, giving a full-body sigh.

"C'mon," he said encouragingly. "You wouldn't even believe how nice it is." He trickled a handful of water through his fingers. "Besides, you heard what the boss said."

 _Stand Down. Or Else._ Bobby shook his head uneasily. But his legs were getting that shivery wobble again, and his stomach felt that crash he got after a hard fight. 

"Soak your feet, at least," Fawkes suggested. He let himself sink lower, to his nose, and _mmmmm_ ed pleasurably into the water.

Bobby took a little longer to strip than Fawkes had. His fingers were clumsy with the buttons, his back and ribs ached when he stretched to peel off his undershirt, the buckles on his boots felt stiff. He stood in his undershorts, shivering in the warm vapor, glancing up at the ceiling.

"C'mere," Fawkes said. "Let me take a look at that eye."

Still wearing his shorts, Bobby eased himself down onto the edge to slip his feet and calves into the water. It was perfectly warm, on the edge of hot but nothing that would chase you out after five minutes. His toes uncurled, tickled by the rushing bubbles.

"Hup!" Fawkes hoisted himself up next to Bobby, naked, glistening and sleek as a seal. "How is it, can you see okay?"

He leaned close, warmth rising from his wet skin, and peered into Bobby's eye. 

"Yeah," Bobby managed, forcing himself not to check the ceiling again. "I can't even really tell which one's the bad one."

Fawkes touched his chin with one wet hand, turning his face a little. "Man, you sure can tell from here."

Bobby couldn't help pulling away. "It's fine."

"Sure," Fawkes said, and he sounded rueful. "You're always fine." He splashed his feet in the water for a minute, leaning back on his hands. His head tilted lazily backward, his throat stretching long and taut. Even in the half-dimmed lights, the bruising was obvious. 

Bobby turned his attention to his own feet floating under the bubbling water. He wished he could bring himself to get some ice and hold it to that bruise. Fawkes would keep still under his hands. Maybe lie back, long limbs spread out in a lazy starfish, feeling safe enough to fall asleep.

"Cold now," Fawkes said, and slithered back into the pool. 

He tucked his knees up and floated all the way around the circumference, paddling with his hands. When he'd circled back to Bobby, he paused. "Hobbes, dude, your _arms_."

Bobby looked idly at the gashes and scrapes. He didn't think any of them were stitch-worthy, but they sure as hell weren't pretty. 

Fawkes moved up close by Bobby's knees and peered at his wrists, but this time he didn't touch. "You really could use some bandaids," he said. "Looks like somebody chewed on 'em."

"Frickin' grapes," Bobby muttered. "Who even needs fake grapes?"

"Within the Harbour Gardens they harvest naught but metal grapes," Fawkes said solemnly. "Plato probably said that."

He splashed backward into the middle of the little pool and slowly sank—down to his nose, then just his eyes and forehead remaining, then with a _plip_ he folded himself all the way under. 

Bobby watched his shape resting there on the bottom, the image wavering amid current and bubbles. His hair wafted back and forth like kelp.

When Fawkes finally surfaced, his wet hair dripping into his eyes, he spluttered, "What time is it? Meet's in what, hour and a half?"

"Little less," said Bobby.

Fawkes parted the curtain of hair with two fingers, peering out. "Any idea what our plan is if it goes wrong?"

Bobby flinched, glancing instinctively upward and around.

"Sorry," Fawkes said, subdued. He swept both hands over his hair, plastering it back like a 30s movie star. Bobby found himself looking at his neck again, at the bruising. It looked worse now, the red starting to shade into purple. Looked like it hurt. 

With a stiff push of both hands, he slid off the edge and into the pool. His boxers clung to him in the force of the current as he waded toward Fawkes.

Fawkes splished a little water with one hand. "Nice, right?"

Bobby stopped in front of him and looked intently at his throat. "How's that feel?"

"Terrible," Fawkes said at once. "Very ouchy."

Bobby leaned close, then reached up and gingerly traced the edges.

"I mean I'm gonna have to wear, like, necklaces or something, for a week." Fawkes's voice buzzed under his fingertips. "And I'm not really a necklace guy. That's not even considering the necktie question, which, no."

"Swallowing okay?"

Fawkes's Adam's apple moved up and down experimentally. "Roger that."

"Breathing trouble?"

Fawkes took a big breath in, his chest and stomach inflating. "Pfeeeeew," he said, letting it out again. "Nope."

Bobby lowered his hand and stood there, uncertain. Fawkes looked down at him. 

"Here," he said after a few long seconds. He took Bobby's hand and lifted it to his neck again. "Check one more time." 

He pressed Bobby's hand to the side of his throat, sort of leaning into it. The bruise didn't even go that far around. All Bobby could feel was his pulse, the heat of water and skin, and Fawkes's hand covering his.

He kept looking at Fawkes's mouth. It wouldn't take much, to coax Fawkes down with the hand on his neck, to lean up and kiss him. Fawkes's eyes were dark and steady and welcoming.

His thumb stroked slowly back and forth just under Fawkes's jawline, grazing over faint, soft stubble. There were little impulses in the muscles of Bobby's calves, almost twitching, as if with every moment he was just about to go up on his toes. 

But every time he almost did, he saw himself—like a near-death experience, didn't they say you floated up to the ceiling and watched yourself on the table? Here, Bobby was up in some bit of ceiling decor, maybe a fucking metal grape, and saw himself with the camera's eyes. Saw himself practically climb Fawkes like a tree, pull him down, desperate and scrabbling. Framed perfectly in a nice color monitor for everyone to watch as he unzipped his skin and climbed out.

He tugged his hand from under Fawkes's and dropped it miserably back to his side with a splash.

"Bobby—" Fawkes said, and started to lean down toward him.

But Bobby stopped him and took a step back, avoiding his worried eyes. "If it goes wrong, like you said. We better have a plan."

"I guess we better." Fawkes's voice was cautious and even. "Nothing's really coming to me, though. You?"

Bobby nodded. He did have an idea, though he didn't like it. And he knew Fawkes wouldn't either. But they weren't here to like stuff, that much was clear.

"I should've known," Fawkes said, mustering a faint little smile. "Bobby Hobbes is, in fact, the man _with_ the plan. So spill."

Bobby couldn't help but actually peek suspiciously back over his shoulder like someone in a Hitchcock movie, no matter how stupid he must have looked. It didn't help; the words wouldn't come out, not while he simultaneously imagined them being picked up by a dozen cameras and scrolled through Times Square.

He shook his head fiercely, but it was frustration, not a negative. Fawkes picked that up. "We gave the place a good once-over," he insisted, his voice still low. "Or, like, a twice-over."

"Yeah," said Bobby unwillingly.

"Yeah," Fawkes echoed, and it was a quiet, sympathetic sound. He hesitated, then put one hand on Bobby's shoulder. It rested there, heavy and warm, like it had in the living room—though now it brought water trickling down Bobby's bare skin, his back, his chest. "Here."

He watched Fawkes disappear, and then the flowing butterflies of quicksilver moved through him, from Fawkes's hand into his shoulder and through his whole body in prickling waves. Bobby pulled in a sudden, short breath. His eyes adjusted, and Fawkes was a close silver shadow in the froth of hot white water. 

"There," Fawkes whispered. "Now no one can see." He leaned down to listen, bowing his silver head.

It was for the plan, Bobby thought. Now he could whisper the plan into Fawkes's ear, and no one could see him whispering anything. And that was important, the plan. Because the meet could fall through, and they'd be in a lot more hot water than this.

He groped out with his own glowing hands and found Fawkes's waist. The skin was slippery with water, the muscle lean and smooth underneath. He held on, his fingers splaying as if to steady himself. The coldness of their bodies brought more vapor from the water, billowing up around them in curling white streamers.

Fawkes lifted his other hand and tentatively held Bobby's arm. "I was thinking—"

But Bobby cut him off. "So the plan," he whispered urgently, clutching at Fawkes to keep him still. "You know he can't find out you don't go nutso anymore, right?"

"I kinda figured."

"Don't know if the boss is gonna try to grab him at the meet, or send a decoy shot or what. But if anything goes wrong, there might still be one guy left downstairs."

"A guy with a working gun," Fawkes agreed. His breath across Bobby's ear had some of the quicksilver frost.

"So if we don't hear from the boss when the two hours are up, we gotta get that guy, before Frank can get back here."

"The Official said stand down, though."

"Is this you telling me we should follow the rules?" Bobby's hands were getting more comfortable on Fawkes's waist—holding rather than clutching, resting just at the top of his hipbones. Fawkes stood easily enough in his grasp, his body relaxed. "You get amnesia from that flamethrower or what?"

"Just sayin' you may not get employee of the month."

Bobby snorted. "How about you?"

"I will never, ever be Charlie Borden's employee of the anything," Fawkes said seriously, and he was so right.

"Then listen." Bobby softened his whisper even further, his lips brushing Fawkes's ear. "I bet we could get Sorenson up here if you killed me."

"Uh...little drastic, don't you think?"

"The madness sets in, you go bananas when I got my guard down, you strangle me or something. I die."

He paused to see if Fawkes was on his mind's track and wanted to finish the thought, but all he heard was breathing, a swallow.

So he went on: "Then you pass out, right? Grab your head, roll your eyes up, whatever. Sorenson comes running in to get you tied up before you can hurt yourself—he won't want to be the guy on watch when the valuable asset goes down the drain. So I jump him. See how he likes getting tied to those grapes for a while."

Fawkes gave a little sigh. "Then we can go home."

"Yeah."

"Too bad we can't take the pool with us. And maybe the couch, for April Fool's Day."

Bobby felt like he should have a crack ready, but he just didn't. He remembered the trusting weight of Fawkes's head in his lap, the touch of Fawkes's hair between his fingers. And he felt Fawkes's waist in his grasp, their hands and bodies creating the circuit for the quicksilver flow, from Fawkes and through Bobby and back, pulsing like one bloodstream. 

His fingers curved, tightened. He turned his head, where Fawkes was still bent close, and put his forehead in the crook of Fawkes's neck. He pushed in desperately but gently, thinking of the bruise.

"Hey," Fawkes whispered. His cool hands slid around Bobby's back and held him.

"Sorry, Fawkes," Bobby muttered against his collarbone. "Gimme a second."

"Bobby." Those long hands stroked his bare back. "You can—" his voice caught. "It's okay. Nobody can see."

Not even Fawkes could see, Bobby realized. Not really. To each other they were just glowing shapes, blurred all around the edges like silhouettes or snow angels. All they had were each other's familiar voices and the chill of quicksilvered skin.

Invisible.

He tugged at Darien's hips and moved in close to him, the water swirling around them as if they were a single island in a misty sea. And he traced his mouth up to the spot where the bruising must be, the way he remembered it. He kissed his throat, so gently, alert for pain or hesitation.

Instead, Darien seemed to melt forward against him in one liquid rush, giving a long, low sigh. One of his hands curved around the back of Bobby's head, holding him with outspread fingers.

Bobby inhaled the scent of Darien's skin, mingling with the light tang of quicksilver. It was weird how cold he was, they both were, without it being uncomfortable. He could even feel Darien's cock thickening against him under the water, nudging at him, regardless of the odd cool layers around them.

Darien lowered his head and brushed their lips together; the glow of him this close up was almost dazzling, and Bobby closed his eyes.

"Bobby," Darien said against his mouth. "I was gonna say I thought it was a good idea."

"S'also a terrible idea," Bobby said, and kissed him. He didn't usually have to crane so far up while he did this, and his heart gave an extra thump, making him dizzy. There was no way to forget who this was, kissing him back with eager little gasps in his throat, holding his head and his back with those long, strong cat burglar's hands.

Not to mention that inability to stop talking. "Terrible, right, so terrible," Darien said between kisses. 

"So good," Bobby muttered, lightheaded. When he took hold of the nape of Darien's neck and pulled their mouths more fiercely together, Darien pushed against him with his entire length, lean chest and torso and legs that went on for days, backing him up through the water. They ended up against the side of the pool, ramming into the deck edge, and Bobby grunted.

"Okay?" Darien managed against his cheek.

Bobby leaned back against the deck and slipped both hands over his bare ass to pull their hips hard together.

"Oh," Darien said, bucking, "God, I...I mean...I love...your terrible ideas..." He braced one hand on the decking, the other still cupped behind Bobby's head, though they were plastered together so tightly elsewhere that the quicksilver could have flowed through a hundred or a thousand other points. Darien thrust against him, rubbing along the wet boxer fabric in long, hard slides.

Exertion under quicksilver felt weird too, turned out. They grappled and kissed and set up a rhythmic splashing, but Bobby couldn't feel himself sweat, or Darien either. It felt strange to have Darien rutting on him, pressed close all down his chest and belly and groin, without any building heat. But he sure as hell felt the heat inside, in his cock and stomach, in his head behind his closed eyes, in both hands holding on tight to Darien's long waist and fine little ass. The sheer abandon was freeing, dizzying, and he let himself just take it in, circling through him bright and cool and safe. 

The surface of the pool churned in waves, splashing over the deck. Darien let out one groan, but then clamped his lips over Bobby's and muffled his voice, his body spasming, hips out of rhythm. He bowed his head low into the crook of Bobby's shoulder and twitched with aftershocks.

Bobby opened his eyes and let their bodies float a little apart, in case Darien got as sensitive after coming as he did. His own cock was still thick and expectant inside his boxers. 

"Speaking of terrible ideas," Darien said suddenly, one of his hands now gripping Bobby's shoulder and one scrabbling at his wet waistband. He slipped his hand inside the boxers and along Bobby's cock, but the angle and the elastic made him swear.

"I mean," Darien said disjointedly, panting, "Of course it's— But if you—"

Then he submerged. The hand on Bobby's shoulder trailed down to hold him by the back of one thigh, while the other yanked the boxers out, down, and away. Bobby shuddered at the feeling of the jetting bubbles with no fabric in the way, sending jolts from his balls to his spine.

Darien lunged up into the air, a glowing mass of steam and droplets, said, "—practice enough, it gets—", took a huge breath and splashed under again. He slipped Bobby's cock into his mouth and sucked, tight and enveloping, and Bobby's eyes fluttered and closed again despite themselves. He meant to pay attention to the passing seconds, make sure Darien got enough air, but it was no use. He touched Darien's floating hair with one feeble hand, threw his own head back against the deck, and completely lost his mind. He might even have said some things out loud, whether or not anybody was listening, and what's more he might not even have cared.

He came soon and hard, and was still twitching when Darien surfaced. Darien's hand was up on Bobby's shoulder again, their naked bodies close but no longer touching. He breathed hard and gently squeezed the muscle at the base of Bobby's neck. 

"Practice, huh?" Bobby said, leaning into his hand.

"Yeah, well," said Darien. His glowing outline rippled in a shrug. "You willing to help me get the hang of it?"

They both snickered. Bobby could feel himself blushing, and wondered if Darien's quicksilvered eyes could see a difference even if the rest of the world couldn't.

"Sure," Bobby said. 

Darien's fingers stroked the back of his neck. "I was hoping," he said quietly, and his voice no longer had that casual swing to it.

Bobby looked with dazed eyes at the shining shape in front of him. "C'mere," he said suddenly, at a normal volume.

Darien didn't hesitate, draping himself against Bobby like a big wet invisible dog.

"Do me a favor," Bobby said into the silhouette of his ear.

"Already?"

Bobby knuckled him in the ribs. "Turn the stuff off, will ya? S'cold."

His armful of Darien—arm-and-a-half-full, really—pulled back a bit, and the ghostly, unreadable face regarded him.

"What good's a hot tub without feeling the heat?" Bobby said.

"If you're sure," Darien said quietly.

"Yeah."

Darien made a satisfied little noise, and Bobby had that feeling skittering down his body like a zipper in his skin. Quicksilver rolled off him, off them both, seeming to dissolve in the air and the water like quick-melting ice.

Fawkes blinked at him, his long face and his big shining eyes. His body was warm, and one wet hand rested loosely on the back of Bobby's neck.

"Feels nice," Bobby said. 

A slow, pleased smile tugged up one side of Fawkes's mouth. His lips were flushed from recent goings-on. He flopped his head lazily onto Bobby's shoulder. "Does, doesn't it."

Bobby idly petted his wet hair.

"You know..." Fawkes said thoughtfully after a while.

"I do," Bobby interrupted. 

Fawkes scoffed. "You do not!"

"Oh I do."

"Yeah?"

Bobby took a handful of hair and tugged. "Yeah, smart guy. And you're right."

"Well, that could apply to anything," Fawkes said complacently. "Don't get any points for that one."

There was a little splashing at that, and then a water fight, and Fawkes might've had the reach but Bobby had the power. Some water got up Bobby's nose and left him coughing, and he felt as safe as he'd ever been in his entire life.

* * *

Fawkes was back in his same singed clothes, but of course Bobby had access to a whole fresh outfit. He went for a black T and jeans this time: clothes to fight in. Course, most of his clothes had been clothes to fight in, one time or another.

They spent some time repacking Bobby's stuff into suitcases and cartons. He left his wet, stretched, crumpled boxers in a splatted heap in the hot tub room, though; let Frank enjoy picking _that_ up.

As the deadline closed in, Fawkes started rubbing his eyes more, rolling his neck and shoulders irritably. Eventually he snagged a pair of sunglasses out of one of Bobby's bags and wore them. Must've helped with the decor. 

"You all right?" Bobby asked a couple of times, whenever they were somewhere in range of the living room cameras. Fawkes brushed him off, but kept the glasses on.

Finally, the two hours had passed with no word. There was the chance that whoever the Official had recruited to ambush Frank needed a little more time; but there was also the chance they'd failed and Frank was fleeing to home base. Bobby wanted more than anything to get Fawkes the hell out of here.

He could sense Fawkes's readiness without even looking at him. So he wandered by him in the vicinity of the living room cameras and said, "Hey, pal. You sure you're okay?"

"Oh, sure," Fawkes said in a deeper voice than usual, leaning one hip against the couch. "More than okay."

"Yeah?" Bobby said, coming closer. "How's the head?"

Fawkes stared at him through the sunglasses. "You know how the head is?" he asked rhetorically. "The head is sick and tired of all this shit."

"Bad?" Bobby asked sympathetically.

Fawkes gave a slow, wide grin, and even though Bobby knew very well it wasn't the real thing, he felt his body respond. The depths of his mind flashed through a dozen instances when it had all been real; he remembered Fawkes standing over him, salivating and ready to kill. 

Fawkes must have seen his flinch or his tension or who knew what, but he didn't react. He came toward Bobby with a loose, swaying step. "Not that bad," he said sweetly. "In fact...I'd say...just about..."

He leaped forward like a panther and tackled Bobby, bearing him down hard to the carpet. They struggled, and it was perfect, perfect: Bobby's every defense was just a hair too slow, and Fawkes's every move was just barely deft enough to get ahead of him. It was rough and scuffling and gasping and all-out, and it felt as quick and fluid if they'd rehearsed it.

Finally Bobby was pinned flat, Fawkes kneeling on his arms. Bobby tried to pitch his legs up for a kick or a lock, but Fawkes's weight was too well placed. The camera angle was ideal.

"Oh," Fawkes practically sang. His sunglasses were still on. "Robert. Robert Hobbes. I am going to love this. _Love it_."

He rubbed his hands sensually together like he was warming them up. Bobby tried to writhe out from under while he was distracted, but no luck.

"Uh-uh," Fawkes said. "No more wasting time."

He loomed over him, put his hands around Bobby's neck in just the right position...and paused. 

He was right about the time-wasting; they needed this to be lengthy enough to catch Sorenson's attention, but quick enough that he'd believe Bobby was dead by the time he got up there. So they were in the third act, the death scene. But Fawkes was hesitating.

"Fawkes," Bobby said, making it sound choked. The back of his neck shivered, remembering another time, a real time. But this wasn't then. It never would be again.

The long hands around his neck were so gentle and hesitant. But Fawkes's body was stiff, and Bobby could feel a fine tremor through his tensed legs. 

"Fawkes." He said it softer this time. Could be because he was running out of air. Or could be because he was pitching it just for Fawkes's ears. Saying the things Fawkes knew how to hear, if he could listen. 

Fawkes's chin dipped in the tiniest nod.

With a breath like he was about to go underwater, he leaned in and strangled Bobby to death, blocking most of the camera's view so he wouldn't really have to squeeze. Bobby met the shadow of his eyes behind the glasses and kept contact, stayed steady, got him through it. Then he let his eyes close and his breathing go as shallow as possible.

Fawkes convulsively jumped off him and helped by pushing him away with one foot, half-rolling him over. Harder to tell if he was breathing that way. And now he got a better angle on Fawkes himself, muttering, pacing, clutching his head and yanking at his hair. And, finally, seizing and collapsing to the floor. 

There was a flat silence, with only Fawkes's tortured breathing to fill it. It went on long enough that Bobby started to wonder if any of their timing had mattered. Or were they performing for an empty chair? But what the hell, they had to try it—

The locks clicked. 

Bobby could've almost felt bad for the guy, Sorenson, broad and grizzled and swearing under his breath. He passed by Bobby's limp form with hardly a glance and grabbed for Fawkes's wrists, fumbling with something small, must've been a zip tie—

Bobby noiselessly rolled to his feet and prowled up behind him. He clenched his hands together in one double-fist, arched his back, and got all his remaining tension out in one giant _WHOCK_! Sorenson collapsed over Fawkes in a dead-weight sprawl, and Bobby had him zip tied at the wrists in seconds. He groped at the guy's belt for another zip tie and did the ankles too, just in case. The zip tie wasn't really meant for such thick ankles, so it was a little tight. Bobby hoped someone came to save the poor bastard before the circulation got cut off too bad; those pins and needles were gonna be a bitch.

"Ey," said Fawkes patiently from underneath Sorenson's heavy body, where he'd been lying during the whole zip tie mishegoss.

"Oh hi," Bobby said. "Need something?"

"Well, you know," Fawkes said, "I've been thinking that maybe I'd like to stand up again. You know, sometime in my life. No rush. Just thinking."

"You're a thinker," Bobby said. "I always said that about you."

He heaved Sorenson over onto the carpet, where he was muttering back to consciousness, and scooped Fawkes all the way back up onto his considerable feet in one easy hoist.

Fawkes looked down at him, no sunglasses now, his face vulnerable and strained.

"Sorry you had to do that," Bobby said.

"Worked, didn't it?" 

"Like a ten-ton charm, my friend." Bobby thumped Fawkes's fist with his own.

Fawkes bent and ferreted around in Sorenson's various pockets. "I have to admit...it got pretty old. Doing that sort of thing for real." He straightened up holding a keyring and stared at Bobby, haunted. "I'd sooner come here for every one of my birthdays."

"And twice on Christmas."

"No, Bobby, I mean it." 

"I know you do," said Bobby. "I know." He took Fawkes by the wrist, wrapping his hand warmly over the snake tattoo there.

"Get it?" Fawkes asked, relaxing under his touch.

"Got it." 

"Good," Fawkes said. "Okay. So...let's get outta here."

"Don't suppose we got time to put my boxes in the van," Bobby said wistfully. "And get the goat cheese from the fridge."

"We'll make Frank pay for movers." Fawkes used a fob on Sorenson's keyring to trigger the electronic locks, and out they went.

"What, like grownups?"

"No more paying me in pizza," Fawkes declared.

"Wow."

They were wary when the elevator opened in the lobby, but it was quiet, the marble floors deserted in the wee hours.

"If anything happens to my stuff this time," Bobby decided as they climbed into the van, "that's it. It's destiny. I'm just gonna give up all my possessions and be a monk."

"A Jewish monk?"

"Yeah, well," Bobby said, stomping the gas and peeling out of the parking lot. "Technicalities."

"I got a better idea, maybe," Fawkes said.

"All ears."

"Whyn't you come home and make me some popcorn? I'm starving."

Bobby looked over at him and their eyes met for a second. "Popcorn is not a meal," he said firmly, taking a fast turn. "Popcorn is for movie time."

"Then what's for middle-of-the-night escape time?" 

"Omelets."

"Oh, right, I forgot." Fawkes slouched back against his door. "So, HQ for debrief, 24-hour-mart for milk, home for omelets, bed for tired agents. Gun it."

* * *

There wasn't any goat cheese, but the omelets were still pretty good, Bobby had to admit. And thanks to Fawkes's foresight about the corkscrew, they had a couple lowball glasses filled with red wine.

"Now," Fawkes said, clanking his fork decisively on the edge of his cleared plate. "Can't we do something about that eye? I mean just as a personal favor to me?"

Bobby went up close to Fawkes's full-length mirror and peered at his own reflection. He could see where the reaction was coming from—it really was bright red all through the white, and kind of alarming if you didn't know any better.

"It's just broken capillaries," he said, studying it closely. 

"Oh, is that all? Something in your eye's just broken, no, hey, that's cool."

Bobby peered deeply into the mirror, watching his eye move and checking for pain or blur. This mirror was from the flea market, he remembered; the freestanding wooden frame was a little beat up, but smooth and worn down just the way Bobby liked it. And he could look as much as he wanted—there was no one hiding behind the glass.

"Maybe you're supposed to kiss it and make it better." Bobby yawned and turned away.

"If I quicksilvered my mouth, it'd be like an ice pack," Fawkes said, and swallowed the last of his wine.

Bobby scooped up the dishes and took them to the sink. "Not quiiite what I meant." 

He started rinsing the plates, and felt Fawkes come up close behind him, hands sliding onto his hips.

"Me neither."

They lazily peeled off their shirts, flinging them over furniture that had never known the touch of gold leaf. The pants crumpled onto the floor in place of wall-to-wall carpet. Fawkes's bathroom didn't have a heated towel rack, that was for sure, but they could both fit in the shower if they got friendly.

By the time the earliest dawn was just turning the sky pearlescent gray, they were curled in Fawkes's bed, their bruises flowering in a garden of blues and blacks. They slept deeply, peacefully, with Bobby's hand loosely resting on Darien's wrist.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to M for beta!


End file.
